Green Eyes
by DayStorm
Summary: Allison is nearly run down by a slew of unfamiliar, brutally fast monsters in the forest. She knows them only by their luminous, pale green eyes. Rescued by Derek, but stricken by an unknown toxin, the one person who has every right to distrust her is the only one who can help.
1. Chapter 1 - Green Eyes

**_*Of course, it goes without saying that Teen Wolf, the story and all related characters belong to the writers, cast, crew and production team of the show. I claim no ownership or association to the TV series titled Teen Wolf. This was written for fun and solely for the enjoyment of other fans*_**

**Chapter 1**

**GREEN EYES**

They were coming.

I didn't know what they were, only that there were a lot of them and they were _**fast**_. Too fast to risk facing them, so I ran and that was almost as stupid but if I wasn't going to fight I had to try and escape.

The woods were dark, with the only light coming from the slim moon I could see peeking out from behind the trees. A sickle of shining white that, at first, I mistook for another of those creatures. I could hear them but I was sure none had pulled ahead of me. Not yet, anyway, and I couldn't shake the feeling that I was actually being herded.

I knew that the charred remains of Hale house were close. Twenty, thirty yards away. I could make it if I veered off now but I immediately dismissed the thought. With crumbling walls, holes and floors that disintegrated with the addition of any new weight . . . the house itself could kill me. Even if it didn't, there wasn't any real way to keep monsters out.

I could appreciate the irony of my situation. The Hunter fleeing through the forest. Aware that her pursuers were trying to run her to ground. Wear her out so that there's no fight left when they finally move in for the killing stroke. Isn't that exactly what we did to werewolves?

Or what we used to do. That wasn't us, anymore. It wasn't me.

Now, alone in the dark with the flash and flicker of shining eyes all around . . . I felt utterly by myself. Just a human girl. Fast and fit but weakening too quickly.

One of them pulled forward, clawed paws thudding heavily. I could hear it. The guttural snarls that seemed torn from the creature's throat. Not wolfish at all. I would almost have thought wolverine or even badger, if it wasn't for the astonishing size of these creatures.

I couldn't see Hale house but I knew I'd passed it. That meant that the highway would be a quarter mile to my right. The city . . . several miles further down. This far out, I couldn't even see the city lights shining off the sparse clouds. I should have been able to but with the canopy of trees and the distance; it felt like too much trouble to try.

I couldn't keep this up.

I thought I might have had a little strength left. A small reserve that would be just enough for one more burst of speed. But there was nowhere to use it. As far as I could see were those tall, skinny trees and open spaces between the trunks.

Cold air sawed my throat on every ragged breath. Exhaustion whirled in my head; a desperate dizziness so fierce that I could feel it like a sickness in my stomach. Nausea heating just beneath my skin.

The creatures snarled and snapped, suddenly frenzied with excitement. Could they sense that this was it? I was done.

A predatory roar split the air. Thunderous, drowning out even the maddened snarls of the creatures but with a voice so much smoother than theirs. So much more even and the part of me that hadn't been driven to absolute exhaustion recognized the sound.

Wolf.

I stopped moving, my boots kicking up dry earth and gravel. The nearest creature hurtled past. Another, following too close to stop collided with me. We tumbled together, slamming into the roots at the base of a tree. Claws like crystal scythes gouged the dirt only inches from my face. The creature's breath smelled like black smoke, rather than putrid meat as I had expected.

Its weight pinned me down, even as it tried to lever itself into a more defensible position. Something was happening. I could hear the creatures hissing and roaring all around me. The sharp click of teeth and, further away but just as distinct came the taunting growls of a werewolf.

That one I recognized. I might die at any moment, either eaten by the unknown monster on top of me or slaughtered by the wolf but the blessed familiarity of the newcomer was astonishing. I knew _**what**_ he was and that . . . that was a relief, of sorts.

The creature standing over me launched itself into the darkness. The glinting green lights flitting all around were other monsters and for a moment, I stayed where I was. Hunched low to the ground, peering at those glowing eyes. Taking advantage of this unexpected distraction to rest.

One of the creatures must have been wounded. I hadn't heard any noise. No sound anyone would expect a wounded animal to make, but the others suddenly swarmed. Converging on the single pair of green eyes like hyenas around a carcass.

I levered myself up a little bit, trying to see what was happening. Could I risk slipping away, or would that just draw them back to me? I was the prey they could still chase.

Iron-like claws closed over the upper part of my arm and, without thinking, my hand fisted on a stone and I swung around. Fully prepared to shatter skulls with my sad little rock.

"Whoa, stop!"

A second clawed hand caught my fist. Sharp nails pricked the soft skin at the back of my hand but didn't press down. Only then did I see the fiery blue glow, very different than the menacing green shine of the creatures.

Werewolf. And better than I'd dared to hope for. Not a stranger. Not some feral Omega. This one knew me. This one . . . this one I could trust, if I needed to.

Derek.

I can only imagine what he must have seen in my expression. Gratitude, certainly. Surprise. Astonishment. Out of all of them, _**he**_ was the one who was here. I wondered what he would think if I hugged him just then.

One of the monsters screamed. Another yowled. A high cry that seemed to churn inside my head. Without meaning to, I flinched. My whole body recoiling at the sound. Wolf claws dug dangerously into the flesh of my arm, just short of slicing into muscle and I knew that Derek had had the same reaction.

"We can't stay here," I breathed so that only he would hear.

The color of his eyes flickered then faded, losing their wolf-glow.

"Follow me," he said.

Easier said. I dragged to my feet, aches knotting my body into a million tight little pieces so that I felt that I would crumble. I felt brittle. Sick inside. Derek gave no indication that he was aware of anything beyond what must have seemed like an expected tiredness. He took off, moving cautiously away from the glowing green eyes of the monsters.

Quietly as I could, I slipped after him. Pausing only once to wipe at the blood trickling from my nose.


	2. Chapter 2 - The Unwanted Visitor

_***Of course, it goes without saying that Teen Wolf, the story and all related characters belong to the cast, crew, writers and production team of the show. I claim no ownership or association to the TV series Teen Wolf. This was written for fun and solely for the enjoyment of other fans***_

**A QUICK WORD FROM DAYSTORM (Me!):**** Okay, I should have written all this on the Chapter 1 but I published it and THEN remembered that I forgot the disclaimer. That said . . . I intend **_**Green Eyes**_** to be a multi-chapter story. I originally wanted to write several chapters before posting anything so that my readers wouldn't have to wait for more but I figured I'd put this out there just to whet people's appetites! Enjoy. More coming and I write fast so don't worry about that. No forever-waits. I promise! :P**

**Chapter 2**

**THE UNWANTED VISITOR**

The drive into Beacon Hills was silent but not nearly as uncomfortable as I would have imagined. Possibly because I was too tired to feel the awkwardness or because it was hard to feel strange getting a ride from someone you'd trusted your life to.

I had questions. Now was not the time to ask them. I didn't think Derek would have the answers, even if I bothered. He'd seemed as unsettled by the creatures in the forest as I was. Some sense we shared – an instinctive recognition – that whatever those monsters were, they weren't anything like us. Not even remotely.

One of them got in a good hit, before Derek thought to cripple it to distract the others. A line of angry red cut across the side of his face, down around the underside of his ear all the way to his hair. The slash might have gone further but I couldn't see well enough to tell for sure. Given a wolf's rapid healing, I knew that cut had to have been brutal when it was made.

I would have liked to comment on it. To at least show that I was aware that he'd been hurt in the melee but certain silences were difficult to break. So I lay my head on the tinted glass of the passenger side window instead and said nothing. It was hard enough to breathe over the thick, gray currents of sleepiness. I didn't really want to talk.

I might have dozed for a bit. I opened my eyes to familiar streets and unlit homes. It was late. Really, really late. Not even my friends would be awake, now.

"Don't take me home," I said. The first words I'd spoken since . . . since the forest. My throat felt dry. My head thick. I was still so tired; it shouldn't have even occurred to me how demanding I sounded.

The roar of the engine, little more than a purr from inside the pretty little sports car whirred silkily as Derek took his foot off the gas. We cruised down the empty length of road, with only his hand on the steering wheel to keep us pointed forward.

Demanding? Ungrateful.

Derek didn't owe me anything. He was hurt rescuing me, when I should have had been able to save myself. And then he drives me back into town, without even a word to suggest he would have preferred to leave me on the side of the road.

So I thank him by making demands; like I had any right to ask for more.

I tried again. "Look, please. Just don't take me home."

The car had slowed to a crawl. We might have been going two miles an hour and it felt like we were stopped in the middle of the street.

"Why not?" Derek demanded. Furious blue lighted his eyes, flickering briefly before fading. "What the hell were you doing in the woods?"

The seatbelt gave a quiet _**snick**_ as I unbuckled. We were going slowly enough, now, that I could just step out of the car. I said, "Because there's no one at home and I don't want to be alone, alright?"

Neither of us moved. Could he blame me for being scared? As weak as I was . . . what chance would I have?

Derek did not look like he believed me.

"Alright," I said. "Let me out here. I'll be fine."

He snorted. The engine roared as he pressed down on the accelerator and whipped the car around in a sharp, clearly-not-impossible U-turn. My whole body was thrown up against the seat as we shot down the street. The second I could move again, I re-buckled the seatbelt.

"Where are you taking me?"

"The loft," he said.

Wonderful.

"I can still hear them." Derek glanced over. Bars of light from dimly lit storefronts passed over his face like specters. The ghosts of memory. Something moved in his eyes. Not color, this time. Thoughts and I couldn't tell what to make of it.

Suddenly, "Wait, what? You can _**hear**_ them?"

He smiled. "You sure you'll be fine?"

"How close are they, that you can hear them?"

Derek tilted his head, listening. I waited, holding my breath so that he could hear better. "I don't know. They're screaming. Makes it hard to tell how close they are."

Of course it did. Too many sounds, particularly loud sounds . . . they would throw his senses.

Derek cut the engine the moment we pulled into the unlit lot. He parked closer to the door than usual and we wasted no time crossing into the building. On better days I hated that stairwell. Twelve stories to Derek's loft with only the sound of your own footfalls echoed back. With a mostly metallic interior, no noise echoed only once. Sounds ricocheted a dozen times before fading. By the time we reached the twelfth floor, it sounded like a whole crowd of people marching up those stairs.

My nerves were fried.

The loft was open and illuminated, even at night. That slim slice of moon, peeking out from behind a wisp of cloud was useless but the city shone.

I hesitated in the doorway, letting it slide closed with a rattle and watched Derek peel off his jacket. Toss it on a chair. He raked his fingers through his hair, seeming at a complete loss as to what to do with me now.

"You didn't answer me," he said.

"What?"

"Exactly that. What were you doing in the woods?"

My heart gave one hard, slow thump. Derek had to have heard it. We stood for a moment, wolf and Hunter staring across at each other. He had the predatory patience, that stillness, but I could wait, too. And keeping quiet was so much more important than humoring my rescuer, no matter what he thought I might have been hiding.

Derek's loft had no bath, only a shower stall like those you'd find at school

A small concrete square that slanted slightly to allow water to trickle down into the drain in the floor, and a showerhead attached to the wall. It was open, but the washroom had a door so there was a measure of privacy. And I trusted Derek to stay downstairs until I was finished.

But still. Stripping off your clothes in someone else's washroom was a lot like getting naked on the roof of the school. No one could see me but I still felt exposed. Uncomfortable.

Not wasting time, I switched on the shower, measured the temperature of the water with my hand and then stepped under the spray. Hot, hot water that felt wonderful on my battered body. Bruised muscles coiled painfully at the heat before seeming to release. I closed my eyes and just let go of the pain. I could rest, now, even if only for a while.

I wondered how long I'd be able to stave off Derek's questions. He seemed genuinely curious as to what had happened in the forest. My very real exhaustion had won me a brief reprieve but come morning, once I'd rested, he would ask again and I did not know what I was going to say.

I leaned forward to rest my forehead on the wall and emptied my mind. Let the heat seep into my body and wash away the horror of the forest. Maybe even wash away the memory of those shining green eyes. The color seemed so soft. So pale. There hadn't been menace in the color but the noises! The noises those creatures had made wormed its way into my brain so that I couldn't be rid of it. Over the rush of water and the rattling pipes and my own silent terror, I could still hear those howls.

They were inside of me.

Cold breath brushed my throat. Teeth pinching the flesh there and my eyes sprang open. All at once too frightened to move. To turn. To fight. My head filled with the smoky scent of _**Them**_ and a scream rolled in my chest. A pressure that built on itself.

Frozen, my eyes fixed on the swirl of water in the drain I saw droplets of blood splatter the concrete. The drops too heavy to be immediately washed away. My nose was bleeding again. I could smell it.

Derek!

My mind screamed for him. So close, he was just downstairs but I couldn't manage even a whimper past the terror lodged in my throat. A paw reached over my shoulder. Huge. As large as a frying pan with claws as clear as glass glinting in the lamplight.

Heart hammering, head full to bursting with hysterical panic but literally unable to move, I could only watch as they hooked my shoulder and flayed the flesh down to bone.


	3. Chapter 3 - Red?

_***Of course, it goes without saying that Teen Wolf, the story and all related characters belong to the writers, cast, crew and production team of the show. I claim no ownership or association to the TV series titled Teen Wolf. This was written for fun and solely for the enjoyment of other fans***_

**Chapter 3**

**RED?**

Blood seeped from the gash in my shoulder. Hideously crimson. It took whole seconds – too long – for my mind to realize I was feeling pain; as if the sensation staggered under the weight of itself. Too much hurt to feel at once. Not enough not to feel at all . . .

Once it hit, the pain erupted!

Excruciating. Searing white. Like someone had pressed the _**sun**_ against the flesh of my back. I thought I screamed – I felt the force of screaming ripping at my throat but not a sound came out. My lungs seized so that I choked instead.

I waited, unable to think to remember my own name but still, consciously or not, I waited for what would come next. Teeth. A quick, brutal stroke and then I wouldn't have to feel anything at all.

That part never came. Through the haze and almost-delirium of unrelenting agony I saw green eyes peering down at me. Gleaming through the dim grayness closing in on us as my mind buckled under the weight of my suffering.

The creature's teeth clicked, nipping lightly at the space between us. Claws scored over the floors, leaving pale white lines on the concrete. The scent of smoke wafted from the creature, filling my head with a particular heaviness and, just as the darkness swelled I could have sworn those green eyes shifted to become the magnificent red of an Alpha wolf . . .


	4. Chapter 4 - The Stairwell

_***Of course, it goes without saying that Teen Wolf, the story and all related characters belong to the writers, cast, crew and production team of the show. I claim no ownership or association to the TV series titled Teen Wolf. This was written for fun and solely for the enjoyment of other fans***_

**Chapter 4**

**THE STAIRWELL**

I was sitting upright on Derek's bed wearing one of his shirts.

My own clothes were gone. Vanished.

Given everything that had happened, it was madness to think the creature had stolen my clothes but I had no explanation for what happened to them. And I must have been in some state of shock to believe that the location of a pair of bloody pants and a sweater merited even a _**blip**_ on my list of concerns. Where did they go? I did not know.

I was, however, perfectly aware that the awful, gaping gash that had sliced me clean open should still be there. The whole arm, from the base of my throat down to my fingertips had very little sensation in it. I couldn't really feel anything there. But the angry red line that was all that was left of a wound that could easily have ended me prickled something fierce. It _**itched**_!

I was healing. By myself. Very, very quickly.

Derek knew.

Shivering, I wrapped the heavy comforter from his bed more snugly around myself. There was no possible way that green-eyed monster could have slinked into the washroom without being detected. Derek would have seen it, smelled it, heard it. Even as deep down exhausted as I was last night . . . I would have noticed something coming into the room. Looming over me.

I was so tired. It was like all the strength had been drained out of me but I was still a Hunter. The daughter of one of the most powerful family of Hunters in the world. Argent. Silver. I would have _**known**_ if something was there with me.

I could hear wolves moving around upstairs. Reinforcements. Derek called Peter while I was out. Scott arrived shortly after I regained consciousness and though I felt a measure of relief at the presence of the three werewolves – incidentally, each one having spent some time as an Alpha – I was not particularly happy that they were here.

It was too easy to imagine bad thing happening to my friends if they got involved.

Scott's voice carried over the deeper timber of the older two. Not loud enough for me to make out what he was saying but I could imagine. Where, oh where, had the monster gone?

Quietly as I could and favoring my formerly-savaged arm, I slipped off the bed and padded on bare feet to the three drawer shelf were Derek stored his clothes. Found a pair of plaid pajama bottoms and quickly tugged them on.

A good four inches too long and so obviously bigger than me, I had to tie knots on both sides of the waistband just to keep the pants from falling down around my ankles.

More voices from upstairs. Scott again, then Derek with Peter talking over them. They sounded like they were arguing. I moved quickly to the large, sliding steel door and winced, aware that the guys could have been shouting at each other and they would still hear the rusty grate of the door being opened. I pushed, needing just enough space to slip through and felt the steel-on-steel squeak rattle my skeleton.

Sudden silence from the bickering wolves.

I shot down the first flight of stairs, tripping over the hem of Derek's too long pajama bottoms and narrowly avoided plunging headlong into a brick wall. My hand caught the banister and I used my own momentum to swing around to the second flight of steps going down. My palms were sweating.

Stairs descending into darkness. I could see the line of light around the entrance doors. Far away but growing closer with every breath. I looked quickly up, expecting to be pursued. There was no one there. How long would it take the guys to realize I was running away? It was actually a little disappointing. I was almost on the ground floor, already.

The trailing edge of Derek's pants caught on a step, jerking my whole foot down and my toes folded painfully against the steel. My hand gripped the banister convulsively, muscles straining against gravity. Really, palm and fingers were all that kept me from cracking my skull against the pavement at the foot of the stairs.

Fear tightened around my heart. More a startled jolt than real fear. Nothing even remotely like the stark terror produced by the presence of unknown, green eyed monsters with claws like shards of glass. My wounded shoulder gave one hard, fiery lance of hurt before going numb again.

I sighed, grateful.

"Allison?"

Oh, no.

Scott. My eyes flicked up. He was leaning over the railing, staring down at me. Backlit by yellowish light from dusty bulbs. His eyes shone, glinting like a cat's. Not deliberately colored, the effect happened just by the way the light was hitting them but the reddish gleam was bright enough for me to make out even from this distance.

My stomach churned as memory conjured the image of monstrous green eyes turning Alpha red.

"Allison, stay there!" Scott shouted down, his voice ricocheting around the stairwell. He sounded frantic. Before I could even process the warning in that command, he'd already launched himself over the side of the railing.

Cold air whirled, tugging at my borrowed clothes. The scent of hot, heavy smoke wafted from the darkness behind the stairs. I backed down to solid ground and Scott landed, crouched defensively on the last step. Fingers hooked so that his claws cut nicks into the steel.

"Can you see it?" I asked him.

Derek's pants tripped me up again. No matter how badly I wanted to stand my ground this time, to fight the monstrous _**thing**_ skulking in the dark I knew I wouldn't last in a melee. Not if I was tripping over my own feet.

"I can see it," Scott said, air hissing around his wolfish teeth. Fangs bared menacingly at the green lights swaying back and forth in front of us. Noises, beastly snarls and grunts came from the shadows but the creature did not advance.

Scott's own eyes blazed. Dangerous, glorious red. A color I still wasn't used to seeing on him but I loved it. He wore it well. Easily. Naturally and after only a moment, I thought that maybe that's what kept the monster from coming for us. It could sense what I already knew was there.

Dominance.

Scott's pack closing in. Derek landed with that same effortless, feline grace on the ground across from Scott and I, the wolf riding him hard. Eyes lit like stars. Ears elongated. Jaw popping with teeth and a low rumble trembling his chest. The forerunner to a roar. Peter, quieter but aligned with the others had flanked the beast. Between the three of them, effectively cornering it beneath the stairs.

I knelt. Hating that I couldn't help but aware I would only be in the way. My hand closed around a length of wood, though. Prepared.

The creature hissed. Low, venomous. It's eyes glinted from green to shining red and Scott froze. Bewildered, I'm sure, as the werewolf part of his mind tried to process the Alpha color. Derek shot forward, claws raking blindly in the dark.

The monster lunged, as fleeting as a shadow and swept through me on its way to nowhere. Just like that, it was gone.


	5. Chapter 5 - Chinese Food and Boogeyman

_***Of course, it goes without saying that Teen Wolf, the story and all related characters belong to the writers, cast, crew and production team of the show. I claim no ownership or association to the TV series titled Teen Wolf. This was written for fun and solely for the enjoyment of other fans***_

**Chapter 5**

**CHINESE FOOD AND THE BOOGEYMAN**

We were back in the Derek's loft.

They were letting me keep the pants, for now. So much for my great escape, but in the time it had taken us to go back upstairs I made up my mind not to try and run again. Not until I was sure there was somewhere for me to go.

It was only still dawn, but the sun had fully risen while we were occupied with monsters in the stairwell. It was so bright that I couldn't really even see the sun climbing higher over the city. There was just this sense of a blinding white shine in the sky. Bars of hot orange lanced through the huge windows that made up most of the outside wall of Derek's loft so that no lamps were needed anywhere. Even the darkest corners were bathed in sunlight.

It was really amazing. Like that moment you first wake from a nightmare and realize that it was only that. A bad dream. There was nowhere for the monsters to hide and for the first time in what felt like a lifetime, it felt safe to breathe again.

"Are we going to discuss the peculiarity of ordering Chinese food first thing in the morning?" I demanded, fingering one of the small white boxes on the table.

Scott said, "I think we should talk about the particularity of a disappearing smoke monster in the stairs."

I smiled at him. He didn't see it, occupied with picking pieces of chicken out of a box of fried rice. Peter reached over the table for packets of plum sauce and in the second it took him to sit back down, I caught a glimpse of Derek's fixed glare from the other end of the table. Nerves twisted in my stomach and I let go of the box of spring rolls I'd been tentatively reaching for.

"What?" I said, drawing everyone's attention.

Derek leaned back in his chair and tapped the steel table with a fingernail. Nail, not a claw.

"Think you're ready to say what you were doing in the middle of the woods, being chased by smoke monsters" he shot Scott a small smirk "at night? Alone."

"Alone?" I echoed.

"Yeah. Alone. By yourself."

I looked quickly around at the others. Peter looked intrigued and I knew that the question had occurred to him, too. I wondered when, exactly, Derek had found the time to explain everything but it was in Peter's small smile. He was aware of what had gone on last night.

What worried me, though, was in the way Scott was looking at me. I saw genuine concern in those dark, dark eyes. Deep brown. There was a time I would have let myself drown in their depths. Sink and forget the world around us, if only for a little while. But things were different now and staring too long would have made us both awkward and uncomfortable.

Not that he didn't still care. The concern was real.

I could feel my heart start to beat just a little faster. Scott knew me too well to hide anything from him for very long. Already, he knew I was about to lie to the group. He didn't say anything, because he had the sensitivity to wait and see if he was right. But he knew . . .

It was strange, how _**that**_ suspicion is what was needed to flip the switch in my brain. My spine straightened and though I was still shaky, my insides feeling like liquid from the omnipresent fear I'd been carting around, I lifted my chin and met Scott's gaze squarely.

"I was looking for someone."

His eyes flickered, surprised by the truth. My heart beat steadily in my chest and they could all hear it. I glanced at Derek. "The creatures caught me out there. I ran because there were too many of them. And yeah, I was by myself."

"You were searching for who?" Peter asked next.

All eyes were on me. Were they really listening to my pulse? Older Hunters, those with more training could control the rhythm, to a degree. Make it harder to hear the stuttering that accompanied an untruth but I hadn't ever learned to do that. I couldn't even imagine how it was done.

"Allison," Scott said, and reached for my hand. His fingers were warm as they brushed mine and even though we weren't together anymore, I appreciated the contact. "Who's out there? Who were you looking for?"

"My dad," I said.

Complete silence from the three wolves. I felt the slight twitch of surprise in Scott's fingers but not a breath of noise from Derek or Peter. I kept my eyes locked with Scott's, finding it easier to speak into them. "My dad's been gone . . . for a while. I went out to look for him. It wasn't dark when I . . . when I started."

"And you didn't think to ask for help?" Scott said. "You could have called me. Called anyone. Why did you go alone?"

I pulled my hand from his grasp. Not sharply, I wasn't offended by the question but because I knew he was right. I should have had someone with me. A partner. Just _**someone**_ to be there in case something happened. I couldn't have known I would be attacked, but what if I'd fallen? Hurt myself? I would have been stuck, then, too.

"Impulsive. Arrogant. Reckless," Peter added helpfully. "Alright, we've established she's all those things. Now. Does anyone care to speculate on what the creatures are?"

Scott sighed and sat back in his chair. _**I**_ sighed a breath of relief. They hadn't asked the question that mattered . . . the one thing I didn't dare tell anyone.

"Anyone else notice they have no scent?" Derek said.

"Not everything does," Scott pointed out. "Jackson didn't. As the Kanima, he smelled like air."

Peter kicked at the legs of Scott's chair. "Green eyed boogeyman hiding under the stairs are not Kanimas."

"What are you talking about?" I demanded. "With your senses of smell, the lot of you should have been choking on it."

Derek folded his arms over his chest. Peter cocked a brow at me. Open challenge from both of them.

"Guys, seriously," I said. "You couldn't smell it? Like, at all?"

"What did _**you**_ smell?" Scott allowed.

"Smoke," I said. "Really heavy smoke. Like burning wood but not pleasant. More like . . . I think like the way smoke would smell if you were inside a burning house. I didn't want to breathe it in."

The others were openly staring. Bewildered. I knew that they couldn't believe what I was saying. Not that they thought I was lying to them – not this time – but that none of them could understand how they'd missed a smell that should have been overpowering.

I grabbed a spring roll from the closest box and bit into it. The food had gone cold but it gave me something to do. After a moment, I wondered if eating the roll made me look confident. Steady again, like the Allison they were more familiar with.

With my other hand, I tried to subtly grab the waistband of the pajama pants I was still wearing and tug them up a little. Even sitting in a chair, they'd started riding down. Derek's borrowed sweater wasn't as big a deal. It was too large but felt like wearing a sleep shirt. At least it stayed up.

Naturally, Peter was the first to break the sudden silence. "Smoke?"

"Yes," I said. Met his incredulous gaze so that he would see for himself I was being honest. "You guys smelled nothing but I smelled burning. What'd you make of that?"

Scott exchanged a brief look with Derek. The older wolf nodded, ever so slightly.

"I'll call Deaton," Scott said.


	6. Chapter 6 - Deaton's Needle

_***Of course, it goes without saying that Teen Wolf, the story and all related characters belong to the writers, cast, crew and production team of the show. I claim no ownership or association to the TV series titled Teen Wolf. This was written for fun and solely for the enjoyment of other fans***_

**Chapter 6**

**DEATON'S NEEDLE**

The first thing Deaton did when he arrived was take note of where I was. Allison Argent, adolescent daughter of a werewolf Hunter sitting cross-legged on a mess of sheets on Derek's bed, wearing a man's pajama bottoms and what was clearly one of Derek's shirts. My face flamed as it very suddenly occurred to me what that must look like.

It didn't occur to Derek, though, who was currently engaged in a terse discussion with Scott.

Yeah. Deaton chose the perfect moment to walk in on us.

Peter, the only wolf who seemed aware of our guest shot me a taunting smile but his eyes danced with silent laughter. Genuine amusement so that I couldn't help but smile back. It _**was**_ funny, in a mortifying sort of way.

Deaton had brought his bag with him. Shiny black leather and hard plastic handles, it reminded me of a doctor's bag from long ago, when doctors still made house calls. My attention settled on the slight, nearly imperceptible bulge in Deaton's jacket. Unsettled, I looked away.

Knowing him, whatever was hidden in his inside jacket pocket could be anything from a mystical weapon to a half a doughnut he was saving for later. Not that Deaton made a habit of walking around with snacks in his pocket but I fervently hoped it was just a doughnut.

He nodded to Peter – acknowledging his presence – and came over to sit beside me on the bed. I said nothing, willing to wait and let him decide where to begin. Peter moved closer to watch.

"I would like to see your shoulder," Deaton said.

Unease prickled sharply but I pulled the shirt down enough to expose my savaged shoulder. The angry red line that had been there before – where there should still have been a gaping, open wound in my body – had faded even more in the hours since the attack. There was only a fading pinkish scar, now, with white veins of tissue puckered at the ends.

I wished I hadn't eaten. My stomach cramped at the sight. This was wrong in a way that defied my understanding. Even the wolves would not have healed as quickly.

"What is it?" Peter demanded.

Was it my imagination, or did he sound worried? Derek and Scott had abandoned their conversation, or shelved it until later, and joined us. A small gathering of bodies. It was starting to feel hot around the bed, though we were in the wide open loft. Lots of air.

I shivered.

"How do you feel?" Deaton asked me, deliberately neutral. I appreciated his professionalism. The mere sight of my body sealing itself made me want to scream. _**Not right! Not possible!**_

It wasn't possible . . .

"I feel okay," I said, pushing a heavy fall of hair from my face. "Tired, I guess."

"It's been a long night," Scott allowed.

Deaton made a noise in his throat but didn't respond beyond that. He ran a finger over the scar on my shoulder and asked, "Does that hurt?"

"No," I said.

"Is it sore?"

"No."

One of the wolves shifted. I couldn't immediately tell which one but it was interesting to see how the other two moved in response. A completely unconscious gesture. None of them were aware of it, but when pack wolves gathered they all fell into that same pattern. A perfect awareness of each other so that when one moved, they all responded. Like a current.

"Allison?"

"Yes." I turned back to the veterinarian. I was being examined by a vet. Not hard to find the joke in that.

"Are you able to feel _**anything**_ in your arm?" he asked me.

The gravity in his tone brought me up short. I stared at him a moment and then, slowly, turned to see what he'd done to me.

There was a pin, like a sewing needle, stuck in my arm. Not on the scar but a few inches over where there was no damage. Cold swept through me as I stared, unable to feel it as Deaton slowly pushed the needle a little deeper.

My first wild though is that this was a trick. Some sort of . . . a gag meant to scare me but I could clearly see the way my skin indented slightly where the needle was stuck. A small ring of blood blossomed around the steel. I thought my heart would burst from the sudden shock of terror.

No. No way.

"I can move," I said. My teeth chattered, clipping the words. "I can move my arm. It's not dead."

I lifted my hand to show them. Bent the elbow and rotated my arm at the shoulder to prove to everyone that I could. The needle hadn't been removed and there was no pain as the muscle Deaton had stuck it in flexed.

"Have you told me everything?" Deaton demanded, looking straight at Scott.

"Yeah," Scott said. He glanced at Derek. "Everything they told me, anyway."

All attention turned to Derek. His eyes flashed, shining blue at the assumption.

"Do you really think," he began "that if I knew anything, I would be keeping it to myself? I've told you what I know."

"They are not accusing you, Derek," I said.

His eyes flicked to me and the glow faded. Mollified, for the moment. I looked at him and then glanced at Scott but my eyes were immediately drawn back to Derek. Something important just happened but I was too worn to think of what. Very, very subtly, Peter moved a few inches closer to the bed and to me . . . a move that felt suspiciously protective.


	7. Chapter 7 - Peter

_***Of course, it goes without saying that Teen Wolf, the story and all related characters belong to the writers, cast, crew and production team of the show. I claim no ownership or association to the TV series titled Teen Wolf. This was written for fun and solely for the enjoyment of other fans***_

**Chapter 7**

**PETER **

I had no sensation – of any kind – in my right arm.

From the base of my neck to the ends of my fingers, there was nothing. I could not feel hot or cold. Couldn't process pain – not even when Peter suggested they hold a match to my arm. And I had no awareness of Scott's touch when he took my hand and squeezed. If I hadn't seen it, I would not have known he was holding my hand at all.

By every right, my arm should have been dead. Nerves severed, maybe, when the green eyed monster sliced me open. If I closed my eyes, I could still feel how deep those claws had gone. I remembered how they grated against bone. The way my entire body trembled from the shock of . . . I really thought I was going to be killed.

Slaughtered, naked in a shower.

It sounded like a bad eighties horror only this was very real. Real and terrifying in a way I'd never felt before because this time, there was nonsense. Like the rules were changed.

My arm was dead. But I _**could**_ move it. I could pick things up and walk around without dropping them, even though I could not feel those objects in my hand. I couldn't feel their texture or the weight of them.

A small voice at the back of my mind had started poking at me. I wasn't safe here. I had to go. I had to run, even if they chased me. Better to be far away than risk my friends being caught in the crossfire. And where had that though come from? I knew that the green eyed monsters would be coming for me again . . . but they had seemed reluctant to face the wolves.

I was only ever attacked when I was alone. I thought back to the incident in the stairs and wondered if anyone else noticed how quickly the creature had withdrawn once it realized my friends were werewolves.

A soul deep exhaustion swept through me. Like a warm wave closing over my head. I could look up and see the surface, the light but it was too hard to swim so I just let myself sink.

I woke to a dry throat and cold feet. My mind felt sluggish. It took too much effort to drag back into consciousness but something was happening. I managed to tilt my head enough to see that more people had arrived while I was sleeping.

One of the twins. I was too tired to tell which one and didn't particularly care either way. Isaac was perched on the arm of a chair, quietly listening as Deaton stood with the pack doing . . . something. Giving instructions, maybe.

I closed my eyes again and sank deeper into the warmth of Derek's sheets. I liked the heavier weight of his comforter and pulled it up around my shoulders so that I could bury myself in it. Muscles all through my body eased. I released my tenuous hold on consciousness and started to sink again. Blessed darkness creeping softly in on me.

"Hey."

I winced at the sharp voice intruding. I resisted the impulse to return. The bed, the sheets and the pillows all carried traces of Derek's natural scent. The parts my feeble human senses could pick up on, anyway. Green leaves and dark, dark soil. I hadn't ever noticed that before . . . Derek smelled like the woods. Appropriate, for a wolf.

"Allison, wake up."

That same voice. Prodding.

"Leave me alone," I managed, turning my face into the pillow.

Quiet snickering. "Or what?"

Sleep . . .

A short, sharp snarl erupted from right beside me. The noise conjured images of teeth and eyes gold as newly minted coins, glowing menacingly. The image in my mind was so clear and immediate that I was awake in an instant. Whatever lethargy had a hold of me just thrown off as if it had never been there at all.

The pack was gone.

I faltered. Blinked. Looked quickly around the loft as if Derek or Scott or Isaac might be hiding in a corner. Under a table. I was a little surprised to find myself crouched on the mattress, knees bent defensively. Using my fingers for balance. I hadn't realized that I had actually sprung upright.

Peter reclined in a chair beside the bed, one booted foot braced on the mattress. A small, taunting smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth. His eyes shone faintly blue. The menacing wolf snarl . . . had come from him.

I slumped down, falling on my butt and trickles of exhaustion started closing in again. This time, I resisted. "What are you doing?"

"Waiting. What are you doing?"

"_**I'm**_ having a heart attack," I said. "What as that for?"

Peter responded, "I was interested to see if you were comatose. Aggressive werewolves will usually get a rise out of a Hunter."

He smiled to himself, seeming pleased with the idea. He ruined it by adding, "Then, you aren't a real Hunter yet, are you?"

I swallowed and my throat pinched. Thirst.

"Where is everyone?"

"Around," Peter said.

I swung my legs off the side of the bed and paused, taking a moment to gather my strength. "How long was I out?"

I had seen the pack gathered and a moment later they were gone. I did not remember falling asleep again. It felt like dozing. Like I was only just starting to drift off. If even a part of me was still awake, I knew I would have heard them leaving.

That wasn't frightening at all . . . how deeply did I sink into that quiet dreamlessness?

I got up, swaying a little as I did. I could feel Peter's eyes on me, tracking, as I walked slowly across to the faucet. He didn't move more than that, just watching, but his attention felt focused. Burning a hole in the back of my skull. I leaned my weight on the sink and switched on the water, letting it spray for a few seconds before cupping my hands under the flow.

I took a sip.

"You do know," Peter spoke as I cupped more water "that everyone is perfectly aware you're keeping something from us."

I froze. Breathed deeply and then wet my hands again. Rubbed cold water over my face and neck, trying to wake myself up.

"No comment?" he taunted.

"They left you behind to guard me?" I asked.

I thought he would lie. He surprised me. "I'm here to protect you, not to guard. Or do you think I should be guarding? You could always run off. It was great fun the first time."

I spun to face him, bristling at the implication. That I'd run away. I _**had**_ run but not for myself. Not from fear. Peter had no idea that when I left here . . . I had been trying to protect him, too.

The scent of smoke, thick and acrid and very heavy in my lungs wafted through the loft. I stared at Peter, waiting for him to become aware of the stench but he didn't appear to notice anything out of the ordinary. My heart started to trip on itself. Thudding _**hard**_.

He heard _**that**_. Uncertainty flickered briefly, followed by quick understanding. He was on his feet almost faster than my tired eyes could follow. A slow, low rumble rolled in his throat as claws lengthened from the ends of his fingers.


	8. Chapter 8 - Peter Vs Green Eyes

_***Of course, it goes without saying that Teen Wolf, the story and all related characters belong to the writers, cast, crew and production team of the show. I claim no ownership or association to the TV series titled Teen Wolf. This was written for fun and solely for the enjoyment of other fans***_

**A QUICK WORD FROM DAYSTORM (Me!):**** Okay, so I used a term in this chapter and I'm not sure if everyone will understand what it means, so I'll explain it here. The word is "eighteen-wheeler". Essentially, it's a truck. A transport truck like you'd see on the highway carrying goods from place to place. That is all. :P Enjoy the chapter.**

**Chapter 8**

**PETER vs. GREEN EYES**

Ten seconds.

That's how long we waited. Standing perfectly still with my back to the wall, eyes on Peter. His fingers were curled, sharp claws pricking at the palms of his hands. Eyes shining electric blue. He was focused. Energized.

_**I**_ was shaking. From weakness rather than fear, although I wasn't exactly impervious to it. A chilling exhaustion tugged at my mind, at my body. Tempting me back into the dark with the promise of peaceful oblivion. No dreams. Just rest. And it was so, so hard to resist. I was so tired . . .

For ten whole seconds nothing happened.

And then, from nowhere, a scream of maddened excitement and those familiar pale green eyes burst from Derek's bed. Straight up from the mattress!

Peter spun, startled but still werewolf fast. Claws raked forward, lashing like a bullwhip. The creature shivered and I thought that Peter had struck a blow but rather than fall the monster flew up to the ceiling. Straight up! Thirty . . . forty feet like it was launched from a cannon!

I was sure it was going to drop back down on us. All teeth and claws and flashing green eyes. The creature howled. With its claws sunk deep into the brick, it twisted around like a spider so that the head was pointed down.

A long, thick tail burst from its spine and weaved. Writhing and coiling like that of a snake. The guttural snarls bubbling from its throat became a sharper serpentine hiss. Small, smooth scales erupted from the creature's shadowy flesh. I shook my head and blinked, hard. Genuinely unable to believe my own eyes. Kanima?

No. No, I was hallucinating. Or maybe dreaming. I had to still be asleep.

I backed into the sink basin, feeling the hard edges digging into my spine. Hands grasped blindly for a weapon. My right hand, useless without any sense of touch.

The creature almost seemed to smile as it descended from the wall. Darkness swelled around it. Eyes flickered, passing back and forth from the reptilian Kanima stare to those eerie pale green. Like a mirage. An illusion.

Peter roared.

The creature leapt.

It sailed straight for me and in the second before it struck, my vision filled with the sight of those glistening, venom-tipped Kanima claws.

WHAM!

Body to body. Shoulder to shoulder. I slammed into the wall, stunned senseless by the force of the hit. I saw stars and then I saw Peter. He'd body checked me with all the force of a barreling eighteen-wheeler . . . so that he could take my place!

Ferocious snarls erupted from his throat. A werewolf at full aggression. Dark claws scored across the fake-Kanima's bare chest. Scaly flesh split like an overripe melon but did not bleed. The creature didn't even flinch. Huge, lipless jaws snapping at Peter's throat. Franticly. Hands grasping his shoulder to pull him closer. Reaching for the large artery pulsing _**right there**_. The killing bite.

I scrambled forward, almost directly behind Peter to slip beneath the sink. There was a toolbox there and where there were tools, there was opportunity for a weapon.

A pained screech was dragged from the monster. I turned my head to see what had happened and froze at the sight. Peter had – somehow – managed to clamp down on the creature's shoulder. Those sharp werewolf teeth sunk deep into snakeskin. Eyes shining so bright that I could see their light reflected off the scales.

There was a hammer in the toolbox and I reached for it. Stopped. The wooden handle would make it so that the head might fly off. Logically, I knew that was unlikely (a hammer is _**made**_ to hit things) but I was also aware that hammers did, on occasion, break. So rather than grab the obvious weapon, my hand reached for a wrench instead. A large one. Not industrial-big but plenty large enough to do damage.

Wielding my makeshift weapon like a medieval mace, I spun around and stood up in one smooth motion. Had only a second to discover that the tables had turned. The creature had Peter by the throat, clawed fingers digging into the hollows on either side of his jaw. It hefted him straight off the ground and then slammed him down with force enough to crack the concrete floor.

Electric blue eyes. A bright, fierce color on Peter.

It flickered and I could tell he struggled to keep the wolf but he was too badly hurt for that. Slowly, like the color was being drawn out of them, Peter's eyes faded to human.

The creature looked at me then. Showed its teeth in a smile and lunged for Peter's throat.

I swung my wrench, arcing the swing like I would with a baseball bat and caught the fake-Kanima right under the chin. Head snapped back so fast I would have thought its neck broke. Instead, the creature lost the illusion of a snake-monster and _**whoomphed**_.

There was no other word for it. The thing exploded into a column of smoke . . .

"Peter, get up."

The wolf stirred. Clearly conscious but confused. He gazed around like he had no real idea of where we were. I fervently hoped he got his sense back soon. The smoke was not dissipating. In fact, it was starting to come back together. Solidifying.

I held my wrench out in front of me, like that would do anything and reached down with my right hand – the one that couldn't feel anything – and grabbed Peter by the arm.

"Come on, get up!" I whispered. "We can't stay here. Get up!"

Awareness and strength was returning. Very, very quickly. Peter's gaze sharpened as he finally noticed the heavy, undulating column of smoke starting to take shape in front of us and his eyes glinted with just a hint of werewolf color.

His hand closed over mine. New claws dangerously close to my vulnerable wrist.

Green lights had begun to manifest in the very centre of the black smoke.

Yeah, that was enough. Stumbling with pain, his wounds healing but not yet healed, Peter held on tight to my arm and dragged me out of Derek's loft.

I saw no reason to stop him.

We hit the stairs running.


	9. Chapter 9 - The Confession

_***Of course, it goes without saying that Teen Wolf, the story and all related characters belong to the writers, cast, crew and production team of the show. I claim no ownership or association to the TV series titled Teen Wolf. This was written for fun and solely for the enjoyment of other fans***_

**Chapter 9**

**THE CONFESSION**

I expected the green eyed creature to find its shape and then follow us.

We both did.

But it didn't. Peter and I made it to the ground floor without trouble . . . beyond the difficulty presented by descending flights of stairs with a wounded werewolf and a girl wearing pants that did not fit. My wrench, which I refused to relinquish, clanged deafeningly against the iron railing each time we stumbled.

Peter and I burst outside as if the door were pressurized. Clean, cool air filled my lungs clearing them of the acrid stench of the creature. It was the sort of smell that seemed to settle inside of you like soot until there was no more room for air. I breathed deeply, just happy that I was able. We were still alive.

We were not in the best condition. Peter stumbled against the outside wall of the building and slid down to the asphalt. Dazed and dizzy, his face chalky white. It must have taken what remained of his strength just to get us out. I stood back and let him rest while cars whizzed past on the road. The only thing keeping us from the rest of the world was the chain-link fence encircling the parking lot. I did not feel particularly safe.

I wondered what people would think, if they happened to glance over and see us. A girl with a large steel wrench in her white-knuckled grip, standing over a man on the ground with his head in his hands. No one would imagine what was really happening, but the imagery was enough to coax a small smile out of me. I slowly lowered myself to the grainy ground beside Peter and lay the wrench on my lap. We sat together in silence.

Even though we hadn't been followed, I still expected to find the green eyed monster slinking around. Prepared to resume the attack the moment we stopped expecting one.

"What do we do now?" I asked, not looking at the wolf beside me but keeping my gaze fixed straight ahead. I could see blue sky through the space between two buildings across the street. It felt safe, to keep my focus there. "You want to hunt down the pack?"

The pack. The only people in the world we could go to for . . . something. For help. For support. Hell, for _**protection**_. I thought it would be what Peter wanted. A wolf would be compelled to find his pack when things go wrong. And things had certainly gone very wrong.

He surprised me by shaking his head.

No.

He tilted his head, letting it fall back against the wall and closed his eyes. His color had improved, though I thought he still looked pale. Ashen, almost. His face was shiny with sweat. Concern I never would have expected to feel for Peter, of all people, swelled inside my chest. It may have been simple gratitude, for what he'd done for me up in the loft but I wasn't going to question it.

Ignoring my own aches and that omnipresent sense of numbing exhaustion I couldn't seem to shake, I rolled to my knees and leaned in closer to him.

"Let me see."

Peter made no effort to stop me. I took his face in my hands and gently turned his head so that I could better see the area beneath his ears. The hollows behind his jaw where the creature had driven its claws. I remembered how hard that grip had been. And how brutally Peter was slammed into the floor.

His werewolf body responded to the injuries exactly as I'd expected. The wounds were healing at the rate I knew they should. Not unnaturally fast, as my own injuries seemed to be. Blood had dried and was now caked along the length of his throat. It flaked where it was thinner. Without thinking, I rubbed the palm of my hand against the skin to clean off the worst of it.

I quickly pulled away and sat back down.

"I think you're going to be okay," I said, to cover my embarrassment.

For several long seconds, Peter said nothing. He sat there, eyes closed in apparent contentment although I knew what was really happening. He needed those seconds to rest. To think.

"You stayed," he said.

I hesitated, uncertain as to what he meant. Of course I'd stayed. Where did he think I was going to go?

He smiled, giving the unsettling impression that he somehow read my mind and said, "You knew they were coming for you. But you stayed. You let yourself be surrounded by friends even though you _**knew**_ what would happen to them if they got in the way."

Cold chilled me straight through to my bones. He knew . . .

I wanted to deny it. I almost did; the words and indignation burning in my throat. Demanding I say something. Defend myself but I couldn't. The quick denial felt like acid in my mouth.

He wasn't wrong and hearing it made it all seem so much worse.

But it wasn't cowardice. I hadn't traded my friends for protection. I would never!

"What makes you think" I spoke very softly, holding my emotions firmly in check "that I had any idea of what would happen?"

"You knew," Peter said. "Because you already know what's happening."

He opened his eyes then. They were human. I had expected them to be glowing. The emotion in that shine would have been easier to read. Aggression. Frustration. I would not have blamed him for any of that but his eyes stayed neutral. This close to him, I could see them clearly. His human eyes were a sharp, blue-gray. The color of a summer storm.

I tried to respond to Peter's statement but faltered. I tried again. "I don't know what you mean."

"You know exactly what I mean," he said. Again, no aggression. Just that quiet, unnerving stare.

My hand closed on the cool steel of the wrench I'd used on the green eyed monster. Prepared to defend myself if Peter did anything but . . . I didn't want to hurt him. It was only a precaution. He would have to strike first before I used it.

For his part, Peter gave no indication he was even aware that I'd armed myself. Or that he cared, if he was. His gaze locked with mine and I didn't have the strength to look away. I should have kept staring at the horizon . . .

"How do you know anything?" I demanded. Openly challenging him, yes, but too tired to play games. Already my mind felt cloudy and muddled. I couldn't fight off exhaustion forever. It was so heavy and dragged so much that I could have happily lay down right there on the asphalt and gone back to sleep.

I was sick. Something inside of me wasn't working the way it should. I couldn't fight Peter, even if I needed to. Not a werewolf. Not a man. I was in no condition to do battle with anyone. I couldn't even focus! My mind had wandered so that when Peter spoke it startled me.

"I know what's happening," Peter said. "Because I'm the one who started this."


	10. Chapter 10 - Seven Years

_***Of course, it goes without saying that Teen Wolf, the story and all related characters belong to the writers, cast, crew and production team of the show. I claim no ownership or association to the TV series titled Teen Wolf. This was written for fun and solely for the enjoyment of other fans***_

**A QUICK WORD FROM DAYSTORM (Me!):**** Just letting everyone know that this chapter will be a little longer than the others because some things are finally going to be explained. Not everything gets said, not yet, but . . . enjoy! :D**

**Chapter 10**

**SEVEN YEARS**

My home was empty when we arrived.

There's always this strange feeling associated with an empty home. It was a lot like all the warmth just went out of the rooms. This was a place that hadn't seen any warm bodies in a while and it was almost like my dad and I had _**never**_ lived here.

I could hear Peter in the kitchen, riffling around in cupboards. I didn't know what he expected to find in there but so long as he was occupied. We hadn't discussed exactly what he'd meant when he said . . . I didn't want to think that my dad being missing – or taken – had anything to do with the wolf I just brought home with me. Whatever those creatures were and whatever they were after, it had nothing to do with the werewolves.

I was sure of it.

Something crashed in the kitchen. A stack of plates, from the sound of it and not the first loud noise to come from that direction. Peter was systematically destroying my home and taking entirely too much pleasure in the process.

I dragged a suitcase out from under my bed and flipped it open. Dug through the books and loose sheets of paper I had stored in there. At the very bottom, stuffed securely in a pocked sews straight into the suitcase was a small white tablet. It looked like it could have been made out of stone; it was certainly heavy enough but the texture and color made me think that it was actually carved out of ceramic. There were no designs on it. Nothing etched or painted or engraved.

More noises from down the hall.

I rose with the ceramic tablet held carefully in both hands and went to go stop Peter before he discovered we owned a gas stove. I walked in on him standing at the window, staring out and down and I wondered what, exactly, he planned on throwing out of it.

One of my boots crunched on what was left of a drinking glass and I swear, I saw Peter smirk at the noise.

"For someone who just confessed to a horror, you're awfully confident."

Peter turned, spinning around to sit on the windowsill. His hands braced on the ledge. "I never specified exactly which horror I was confessing to."

"How many horrors are there?" I regretted the question the moment I asked it. In this town? There was no limit to _**anything**_ in Beacon Hills . . .

A chill crawled up the back of my neck. Peter didn't respond, choosing instead to watch me from across the demolished kitchen with a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

He did that a lot, I thought. It almost seemed defensive. Peter's familiar mocking humor designed to look as if he were the only one aware of a huge joke being played on everyone. It was hard to accept that swagger after what we just shared. I had felt that brief connection with him and it had been real. It was pack. Belonging. Family.

He felt it too and it unsettled him. So he'd fallen safely back on that wall he put up to distance himself from those who distrusted him. Those who _**could not**_ let themselves trust him, even while demanding his help. The oldest, most experienced werewolf in town.

He was the only one who had answers to . . . everything, really. Now _**I**_ needed answers. I needed to know what was happening and, like always, Peter Hale was the one who knew things.

He must have sensed some of what I was thinking because the cocky grin faltered. He took a deep breath and inclined his head, inviting me to sit at the thankfully undamaged dinner table. I didn't hesitate, worried that if I did he would change his mind and . . . and I don't know what. Take off, maybe? What would I do if he just left?

I sat down, having to first pull an overturned chair upright. Peter sat across from me, leaving the entire length of the table between us. It hadn't occurred to me before this that he might actually be afraid to talk to me. His confession back at the loft, about how all of this began with him sounded dire by itself. It was no great leap to imagine how the whole story might be downright terrifying.

We sat like that for what felt like a very long time. Peter tapped his finger on the table once, twice, three times and then jabbed a claw into the wood. I stayed very still, not afraid but curious as to what he was doing. Seeing that I wasn't going to stop him, Peter very slowly gouged a deep slice right through the polished surface. Twelve inches long and impossible to repair.

"My dad is going to kill me," I muttered.

Peter snorted and withdrew the claw. "Do you know the deepest desire of your heart, Allison?"

"What does that mean?"

"If you ever stopped to wonder what you wanted, you would realize that the answer changes. No one ever thinks about that. What you want most right now . . . isn't necessarily what you'll even care about tomorrow."

Nerves jangled. A little alarm in my mind. I pushed the instinctive Hunter-caution aside and leaned forward. Peter wasn't playing games with me. This was important.

He sighed, satisfied that I was listening. More eager to speak, now that he was sure I was willing to hear what he had to say. "Look, I don't know exactly what those creatures are. I never got that far but I was never sure they even existed."

"One of them tried to kill you. It almost succeeded." Reminding the wolf that I saved him probably wasn't the most efficient way to go about getting him to open up to me but it was too late to take the words back, now. "They tried to kill me. I'm fairly certain they _**exist**_."

"I meant," Peter said "that they only exist some of the time. Where are they when they're not around? Nowhere. I never proved it, but I don't even think they can manifest too far away from you."

"What do you mean, 'proved it'?" I said. "You've seen these things before. Where?"

"I told you that this was my fault," Peter said, and I could have sworn I saw a flicker of something in his eyes. Regret. Not an emotion I had ever seen in him before. Not ever. "I didn't mean to tell you that, but I meant exactly what I said. I started this. Seven years ago, I conjured _**Them**_."

This was it. What I needed to know. I sat back in my chair, careful not to make any noise that might distract the wolf sitting across from me. I couldn't risk him changing his mind because I couldn't have stopped him if he decided to just leave.

"Say what you want about me, Allison, I didn't unleash them on purpose. I had no idea what I'd done." He trembled. I pretended not to notice. "I never even noticed it, at first. Things were different before the fire. Our pack was large. Powerful. My sister was our Alpha and even though that gave me a measure of power that I would not have had otherwise . . ."

"You wanted more."

He nodded. "Yeah. I did."

He glanced up, then, and I don't know what he saw in my expression but it made his eyes ignite. The hot, piercing blue of a wolf who'd taken innocent life. "I started to rise in pack hierarchy. At first, I thought it was me. That I was actually the one climbing so fast but it wasn't. My desire changed. I had wanted power. A taste of what my sister had became a desire to have _**exactly**_ what she did. Even that desire became an all-consuming need and the creatures responded."

"How?" I didn't want to know. I needed to know . . .

Peter smiled. No humor at all. It was a look of absolute loathing and a numbing rage.

"You know who started the fire."

Not a question. My heart stopped.

"My aunt," I said.

"Kate." Fangs lengthened. "The creatures will grant you what they sense you want most. But it is not a gift. They demand payment for what they offer, even when the recipient of their favors does not know that he's been granted their aid. That power I wanted so badly was paid for with the blood of my pack."

Dangerous. Dangerous thing to say right at that moment but I had to tell him. I had to point out, "But it was my aunt Kate and . . . and the others who set fire to your house. We know it was them. The creatures didn't do it."

"No?" Peter challenged. "Don't you see how brilliant it was? All of it. The greatest threat to werewolves are Hunters. Even others of our own kind are less destructive to a pack than a band of Hunters. The creatures used our biggest fear to claim their price for them. I wanted power and all those who stood in front of me were destroyed."

"There were kids in that basement," I said. "And others. They couldn't have all been threats to keep you from what you wanted."

"Most of them weren't. Betas happy with their places in the pack. Humans who had no interest in challenging pack hierarchy. Collateral damage. They died because they were there."

My heart hammered. Beating in my chest like it was trying to escape. A slow, dawning horror was creeping up on me and I didn't know what to do about it.

"They came again, you know," Peter said, like an afterthought. Like it just occurred to him. "They must have sensed how receptive I'd been to their services the first time so they returned when I needed them most."

"What? When?"

Oh, crap. What now?

He leaned forward, then. Staring at me from across the table but suddenly seeming very close. "How did Derek become Alpha, Allison? I was killed. How do you think I managed to revive myself? Or did you think returning from the dead was just something wolves do?"

Oh, my god . . .

"Fortunately for everyone involved, no one had to die to bring me back. Can you guess what I sacrificed for the privilege?"

His power. Peter was still a werewolf – would always be a wolf – but he'd had to sacrifice the wolf power to resurrect himself. He'd told us that already, but no one had imagined . . . I looked away, staring resolutely at the backs of my hands. Understand swept through me and I thought that I would fall from my chair.

What I had thought was horror before became so much sharper. An acute panic as I finally realized exactly what was happening around me. The creatures – it was happening again. Only this time, it wasn't Peter they had responded to.

"So, Allison," Peter said. "Do _**you**_ know the deepest desire of your heart?"


	11. Chapter 11 - Infection

_***Of course, it goes without saying that Teen Wolf, the story and all related characters belong to the writers, cast, crew and production team of the show. I claim no ownership or association to the TV series titled Teen Wolf. This was written for fun and solely for the enjoyment of other fans***_

**Chapter 11**

**INFECTION**

The greatest desire of my heart.

That was the question, wasn't it? What secret desire of mine could have drawn the creatures to me? It would have had to be something as driving as what originally motivated Peter and the scary thing is: where Peter hadn't immediately known what he wanted most, I knew exactly what it was I'd wished for. Apparently, it didn't matter that I never wished for it out loud. The desire was there and _**They**_ responded.

I was back in my room now. Enjoying the illusionary safety of home while I still could. My bed with sheets that smelled like me, not Derek. Familiar pictures on the walls. Books that were mine stacked neatly on shelves and folded open on my desk. The walls were painted a color I had chosen myself, when my dad and I returned to Beacon Hills after . . . after the last disaster.

My life in a nutshell.

The appearance of normality to mask what was really going on. This room and these things – my things – was where I went to escape for a while. Just a little while, to pretend I was still just a girl. It seemed so long ago but really, how long was it?

Last year. Only one year ago, none of this would have been possible. I discovered the existence of werewolves and was immediately thrust into this world.

Argent. Silver. Hunter.

My destiny.

I sighed and opened my eyes. Let my gaze trace the rounded patterns in the ceiling. Lying flat on my back, hands resting lightly over my stomach and my legs crossed at the ankles. I was comfortable but restless. I knew I needed to get up. Peter was in the apartment, somewhere. Leaving that particular wolf alone to explore uninterrupted seemed like a monumentally bad idea.

I wondered who had arrived. Someone was knocking at the door but not for very long, so Peter must have answered.

I was so, so tired. My eyes itched and burned until I finally let them fall shut again. I breathed deeply, inhaling all my lungs could hold. Held it for a second. Exhaled and it felt very, very good. Clean, somehow.

WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!

I started awake, dizzy and a little confused. I did not remember falling asleep.

Someone was at the door. Again.

Sharp pain knotted in my stomach and I rolled out of bed, tripping over my own booted feet as I slammed into the washroom. Dropped to my knees in front of the toilet with seconds to spare. I vomited, my whole body arching from the force of it. There was time to take a shaky breath before throwing up a second time.

I stayed where I was, the muscles in my stomach trembling. My head pounding like a drumbeat. It hurt and felt like someone was yanking on the veins behind my eyes. I coughed and spit into the toilet. Warm hands pulled my long hair back, out of my face.

Hot and cold and weak and dizzy with pains shooting through my body, I had no idea who had come in and I was feeling so miserable that I really did not care. Cramping tightened again and I was sure there was more coming up.

There wasn't.

I let myself slid away and fell back against the cool side of the bathtub. I felt white. My body slicked with sick-sweat. Peter crouched directly in front of me, his expression unreadable. I closed my eyes against the whirling dizziness; unwilling to watch the room tilt and sway.

"Who else is here?" I asked him, immediately regretting it as my stomach gave a violent lurch. I swallowed hard and lay my head on the smooth surface of the bathtub. It felt good. Cold against the feverish heat in my skin.

"Who do you think?" Peter said. "They need to know what's happening. With you."

I almost managed a smile. Peter didn't want the others to know the part he'd played with the creatures, all those years ago. He was asking me to say nothing. I couldn't fault him for that . . . how do you tell your current pack that you inadvertently murdered your old one? How does he say anything, after _**deliberately**_ murdering his niece to make himself Alpha even after everything that had happened because of that incessant need for power?

I swallowed again, in an effort to keep things down and then said, "What did you tell them? About me?"

"Nothing," he said. "Whatever you want so badly that you conjured these things to get it . . . was not done on purpose."

"Do you think my dad's dead?"

Peter turned his head away. "I really don't know. The price I had to pay for their services may not be the same as yours. They might demand something else from you."

"Then why take my dad, if they don't intend to kill him?"

I knew I wanted something from Peter and I didn't think I would get it. Not from him. What I wanted was just to be told it was okay. That everything was going to be alright even though it wasn't. I wanted to be lied to.

"Allison? Hey, look at me." Peter took my face in his hands. "Scott sent the pack out to scour the forest for your father. He and Derek are the only ones here. They are the only ones who need to be told anything. Do you hear me? Allison!"

I was fading fast. Now that I was done being sick all I wanted to do was curl up on the cold floor and sleep. But Peter was shaking me, refusing to let me sink so I stayed. I stayed awake and cursed every second of it.

The exhaustion, that weight of smothering darkness was so bad that fighting it was almost a physical pain. Excruciating and unforgiving.

"Tell them whatever you want," I said, just to get Peter to stop. His fingers were starting to dig into my shoulders.

"Allison?" Peter sounded distressed. Genuinely concerned. The unexpectedness of that was just enough to make me open my eyes.

"What?"

I looked up at the werewolf looming over me and saw his eyes slowly brightening. He took both my hands in his. Turned them over.

"I think you've been poisoned," he said.

I glanced quickly down, suddenly realizing that my right hand – the one that had been unable to feel any sort of sensation at all – felt brutally cold. Peter's skin flamed against mine and there, like venomous tendril on the surface of some alien planet, were the engorged veins pulsing directly beneath my skin. Stark, jet black veins that were cold as ice.


	12. Chapter 12 - Cha-Cha-Changes

_***Of course, it goes without saying that Teen Wolf, the story and all related characters belong to the writers, cast, crew and production team of the show. I claim no ownership or association to the TV series titled Teen Wolf. This was written for fun and solely for the enjoyment of other fans***_

**Chapter 12**

**CHA-CHA-CHANGES**

They sent me to my room.

I almost couldn't believe it. Scott, Derek and Peter . . . sent me to my room. Like a child being told to go play outside while the adults talked. For a while, I didn't mind. I lay in my bed, sweating and shaking and clinging to the mattress while the room spun and tilted. Holding perfectly still on top of my sheets feeling like I was going to fly off the bed.

The _**last**_ place I needed to be was at a pack meeting. Werewolves in my living room. There was a joke in there but I was too miserable to think of it just then.

It took maybe an hour – during which time I spent exactly zero seconds sleeping – before whatever horrible toxic spill inside my body started to fix itself. Or right itself. Or maybe my body simply grew accustomed to it because I started to feel better. And just like with savaged my shoulder, I started feeling better far too quickly.

Minutes after the room stopped spinning, I was on my feet and creeping down the corridor from my room to the foyer where the wolves had gathered. Noiselessly. As bad as that bout of illness had been, the mere fact that I could slip so easily into my Hunter stealth was almost as frightening as the fever chills. Logically, I should have been too weak to accomplish this.

I ducked down and sat, as quietly as I could, just outside the living room. Close enough to hear the wolves, not so near that I risked being seen by them. My stomach tightened a little bit, churning, but I was feeling well enough to listen.

A gaggle of voices whispering back and forth. They sounded agitated. It also sounded like there were more than three of them in that room. I closed my eyes to limit distraction and focused on those voices.

"You left the twins out there?" Stiles.

I leaned further into the wall, concentrating.

"They'll be fine," Scott responded.

"Dude, you left the _**twins**_ out there."

"I heard you."

"Alone. By themselves. Solitary. Or, you know, _**duotary**_. There're two of them."

Scott. "_**Duotary**_?"

Derek's voice. "Anyone actually want to talk about the giant smoke monster that turned itself into a fricken Kanima?"

"You know it never did that, right?" Peter. "At no point did it actually _**become**_ a Kanima."

Derek again. "Maybe not but it still took a rather nice bite out of you."

I smiled, picturing the look Derek must have received for that little remark.

Peter responded with a sour, "That never happened, either."

Technically true. Peter got introduced to the creature's claws, but not its teeth. No biting.

"Okay. So how do we stop something that wants all of us dead and apparently has no trouble finding us, passing through solid objects and is very capable of beating the hell out of werewolves?"

For a second, I thought Stiles said that but no. That was Isaac's voice. I opened my eyes and fixed a stare on the wall across from me. Those two sounded nothing alike but the voice had echoed in my head. Each word seeming drawn out as if I were listening through a tunnel.

My arm ached and I rubbed a hand over the cool skin around my wrist. Absolutely hated the sensation of those dark veins pulsing. Evidence that something awful was going on inside of me. I didn't even want to look at it.

"Alright, look," Scott said. "Until one – or more – of those creatures shows up there isn't much we can do about them. What matters most right now, is that Allison's changing."

I froze. Held my breath and listened. My heart was pounding so that I couldn't believe none of the wolves in the other room could hear it.

"Wait, what? Changing how?" Stiles demanded. "How do you know?"

Scott explained, "Her scent is different. It's not familiar anymore. Not at all . . ."

"When we got here, I thought someone else was in here with us," Derek remarked. Long pause where the others must have been staring at him, then, "Yeah, I noticed her scent was changed, too, alright? It's different enough so that I honestly didn't know it was her."

"Wow." Stiles. "So she's turning into something else . . . anyone have any idea what that 'something else' might be?"

He got no response to that. At least, none that I was able to overhear though I could imagine the looks being passed around. I was changing. Mutating so quickly that they couldn't even recognize me by scent anymore.

My friends, the people who meant the most to me, were afraid of me.

Now I understood what Scott must have felt, after he'd first been bitten. Alone. Afraid. Aware some great change was taking place inside of him and helpless to do anything to stop it. Terrified of what would happen once those changes manifested.

I dared to look at my arm, then. Those black veins had multiplied. The color of jet. The most frightening part was that the veins – _**my**_ veins – looked swollen. Engorged. So big that I could see them beating along with my heart. They were pulsing.

Horror rose into my throat, so that I could taste the bitterness in my mouth. Tears burned in my eyes but no moisture and I was so scared that . . . I had to wonder if the lack of tears was just another sign of my changing into something that was not me. Something that wasn't Allison.

Using my thumb, I pressed down on one of the black veins in my forearm; expecting pain. It didn't hurt though bitter cold shot through my body when I pressed down a little harder.

At least when Scott became a wolf, he didn't have to watch the werewolf venom going to work inside of him. What was I becoming . . .?


	13. Chapter 13 -The Almost Successful Escape

_***Of course, it goes without saying that Teen Wolf, the story and all related characters belong to the writers, cast, crew and production team of the show. I claim no ownership or association to the TV series titled Teen Wolf. This was written for fun and solely for the enjoyment of other fans***_

**Chapter 13**

**THE ALMOST SUCCESSFUL ESCAPE**

A long shirt and thin gloves was all it took to hide the inky veins throbbing up and down my right arm to the tips of my fingers. It was nice out, with the sun shining so bright and clear and the slightest hint of a pleasant breeze whispering through new leaves. A wonderful spring afternoon . . . but it was also just cool enough so that I didn't look bizarre walking around with gloves on.

I honestly could not believe that I got away from the wolves. I was sure, absolutely certain, that they would hear me leaving but no one came after me. So either no one cared what I did anymore or I genuinely snuck away . . .

I didn't believe nobody cared.

And that's exactly why I couldn't stay with them. If I was mutating into something awful, I didn't want to be anywhere near my friends. I did not want to risk hurting them. I wasn't sure I could live with myself if I harmed any of them. At least, the Allison I was right now didn't have the heart to hurt those I loved. Who knows what I would think, later?

I didn't just leave, however. Unlike back at Derek's loft, where I'd run without any real idea of where I was going, this time I had a fixed destination. One where I doubted the pack would expect me to go, given that it appeared as if I had run away.

Deaton's animal clinic was at the end of a narrow, two-lane road. Sunny, because there were no buildings around it too tall to blot out the light but quiet for essentially the same reason. This was not a populated area. I used to appreciate the silence. I still did. It was a long walk from my home to this place, following high traffic streets and past storefronts with noise and lights and everything _**moving**_. I was well enough to walk the distance but still too sick to stand the uptown crush.

By the time I arrived at the clinic, I was lightheaded with nausea just starting to creep back in.

I hesitated at the front door, suddenly afraid to find that I wouldn't be able to enter. Half the building was built from mountain ash wood . . . and I was becoming a supernatural creature, wasn't I? My fingers tingled as I reached for the door.

Something flashed and flickered out of the corner of my eye. I spun, instinctively ducking down at the same instant and scanned the vacant alley to the side of the clinic.

Nothing moved.

The silence was deafening. I could just make out the distant hiss of traffic. The wind pushing a damp newspaper over the asphalt. Those small sounds were enough to make the quiet all that much more frightening. So much more acute.

From behind a large dumpster, with only inches of space between the green painted metal and red brick wall, I saw something. Green.

No. No . . .

I blinked, trying to clear my vision a little. Green, _**dark**_ green dumpster. Red wall. Pale, pale green lights staring back at me. Menacingly.

Impossible, of course, for something so large to be squeezed into three-inches of space but my idea of what can and cannot be done had changed since discovering the existence of werewolves. Who was I to say that a seven foot, badger/wolverine/smoke-monster body couldn't fit there?

Very carefully, prepared for the creature to leap at me, I stood back up. Stood, straightening my spine to make myself look a little taller . . . and a little braver. I was alone and the last time I was caught by myself with one of these things I got my shoulder sliced open.

The glowing eyes slid lower, so that it looked as if the monster had ducked its head. Not submissively, certainly not that, but inquisitively. Like a dog would while observing something it doesn't quite understand. My heart started to pound as it occurred to me that whatever mutation my body was currently undergoing might not have anything to do with the creatures.

"Go away," I whispered and watched as the head came up. Listening to my voice. "I'm busy and you can't come in."

The creature snarled.

I spun and slammed into Deaton's clinic.

The bell _**dinged**_ loudly. Violently. It seemed like a perfect reflection of my emotions.

I was tired. Tired of being sick. Afraid. Hunted. Hounded. Pursued . . . Deaton was waiting for me at the front counter.

"Why has it occurred to no one to bring me here to get away from _**Them**_?" I demanded by way of a greeting. This whole building was shielded!

Deaton didn't appear at all perturbed by my attitude. He smiled and lifted the gate so that I could cross to the back of the clinic. Closed the gate behind me, effectively locking out the supernatural community. For the first time in what felt like days, I could breathe again. And it felt good.

"What can I help you with, Allison?"

I pulled off my gloves and rolled up the sleeve of my right arm. Cringed at the sight of those ugly black veins but held out the limb anyway, allowing Deaton to see.

He took my arm in both hands, holding gently as if his touch alone might hurt me.

"Do you know what this is?" I asked.

"It looks like Pain," Deaton remarked. Glanced at me, his dark eyes unreadable. "It still doesn't hurt?"

"No. It's cold, though," I said. "It feels like ice water."

Ice water in my veins. Wasn't hard to find the joke there! Personally, I never thought of myself as being _**that**_ cold. I almost smiled, imagining the awkward laugh Scott would have given me. And his immediate panic as he realized he wasn't supposed to laugh at that.

"Come with me," Deaton said.

He led me to the examination room. The clinic smell was stronger back there. A familiar animal musk accented by the scent of clean cages, steel and antiseptic. Not frightening at all. If anything, it comforted me. This was a place of healing. To take the hurt away and make things better. Didn't seem to matter that this was a veterinarian clinic instead of a hospital.

"Are you particularly afraid of needles, Allison?" Deaton asked me, brandishing a skinny syringe.

"Are you serious?" I tried a small smile.

"I want to draw some of . . . that," he nodded towards my arm and the inky black pulsing beneath the skin "and run some tests. To see what it is."

Tests. Yes, tests were good.

I very desperately wanted those results.

I offered my arm and held still while he expertly slipped the needle into a vein. Brutal, burning cold swept through my entire body and the black ink filled the syringe. It swirled inside the glass and turned from ink to a smoky white.

A whole new terror. _**What**_ was inside me?

Deaton placed a cotton ball over the small puncture and covered it with a generic Band-Aid. He carefully placed the syringe in a glass case to keep it safe and . . . and possibly to avoid an outbreak. Was I contagious? No, he'd worn gloves but nothing else. If Deaton were afraid of infection he would have taken precautions.

The door bell _**dinged**_ and we both started a little. Guiltily.

Deaton motioned for me to keep quiet and strode to the front. Customers weren't the only people who came through that door.

From the front of the clinic came a familiar voice that sounded far more amused than he had any right to. "I know she's here."

Peter Hale.

Wonderful.

"Allison?" he called.

I sighed, resigned, and came forward.

Peter stood at the door, just inside the clinic, wearing a white sweater and his long dark coat. Backlit by radiant sunlight, the ends of his dark hair shining golden red . . . he looked amazing. Powerful. Dangerous.

"What do you want?" I asked him.

Peter came forward then, stepping out of the light but managing to keep that deadly swagger.

"Try not to look so worried," he said to me. "I'm not here to drag you back."

"Then why did you come?"

"Would you believe I'm here to help?"

Strangely, I would believe that.

He said, "The twins are missing. The others have gone out to search for them . . . and you and I have someplace to be."

I hesitated, uncertain of how to respond and Peter must have taken it as indecision.

He added, "Look, I think I've figured out what you're being forced to sacrifice. And that –" he pointed at my arm "– is just a distraction. So are you coming?"


	14. Chapter 14 - Trust

_***Of course, it goes without saying that Teen Wolf, the story and all related characters belong to the writers, cast, crew and production team of the show. I claim no ownership or association to the TV series titled Teen Wolf. This was written for fun and solely for the enjoyment of other fans***_

**Chapter 14**

**TRUST**

Deaton did not want me to go off with Peter.

Not because he thought Peter couldn't be trusted with me, but because my condition was clearly worsening and I needed rest. I needed to stay close. Running around with a werewolf is not conductive to improving ones health.

He did, however, promise to stick a sample of the stuff he got from my veins under a microscope and to call if he found anything. A part of me was waiting for that call.

A small part. I really didn't want him to find anything because that would mean there was something to find. Was it wrong to pretend that there was nothing wrong with me? It wasn't denial I just . . . I wanted to be okay for a little bit longer.

In the hour of so since we left Deaton's animal clinic, the awful cold that had been travelling through my body had abated somewhat. I could still feel it, moving slowly through the pulsating veins but the toxin or venom warmed a little whenever it passed through the rest of my body. Cool or cold, it was not a good feeling.

I glanced at Peter. Saw how the skin of his knuckles stretched over bone as he tightened his grip on the steering wheel. We were speeding down a stretch of highway outside of Beacon Hills. Far enough so that I wasn't entirely sure where we were. We could have been halfway to the next town or just circling the city. Either way, where I sat anticipating Deaton's call Peter had been growing steadily tenser. It was getting hard for him to keep up the pretense of the cool unconcern he usually wore so easily.

I let my gaze drop to my hands, folded on my lap. The left one looked normal. Smooth, pale skin. Long fingers. There were parts that were slightly roughened – toughened – from years of drawing on bowstrings but they were still _**my**_ hands.

On the right, the skin was starting to look inflamed. Reddened. Those ugly black veins were swollen and it was affecting the flesh around them. The whole arm looked nothing like it should. I was turning into some sort of contorted alien pod creature.

"What did you mean, when you said that this was only a distraction?" I asked, uncomfortable with the lengthening silence.

Peter seemed to have been lost in thought, because my voice startled him a little. And he appeared to have to pull his mind back from wherever it had gone before he could even respond.

"Am I changing?" I demanded. "Or am I not?"

"You're changing," he said. "That's real. Distractions don't have to be fake."

No, they didn't. I closed my deformed hand into a fist and saw how the swelling pulled tight. The flesh got redder, turning almost purplish.

"Am I going to die?"

That earned me a quick glance.

"I overheard you guys talking," I told him. "Before I left. I heard what you were all saying. That my scent is changing . . ."

No response from the wolf at my side.

I sighed. "You realize you ask a lot from me, don't you?"

Peter. "Do I?"

I said, "I haven't questioned anything you've told me. I've trusted you . . . _**you**_ more than any of the others."

"You have," he agreed. He sounded mildly astonished, as if it hadn't occurred to him until then. But out of all the wolves, it was Peter I found it easiest to be with. Maybe because out of all of them, I expected the least from him . . . and yet he continuously delivered far more than he owed me.

"Then why do you think you can't trust me?"

"Trust is not something I'm too familiar with," Peter said. He offered a small smile. "Too many years spent deceiving those who thought _**I**_ could be trusted will do that."

"Wonderful." I looked out the side window. Trees whizzed by, blurring into a vista of orange static. A combination of speed and the quickly setting sun. The light was orange and gold but the sky above was still blue. A deep, solid cobalt.

"If it makes any difference," Peter said. "I wouldn't be doing this – helping you – if I didn't care."

"You might," I pointed out. "If it benefited you."

"But I'm not. And it doesn't."

Not entirely true. A moment of reflection was all it took for me to work out the one benefit he would receive if I survived and all this worked out for the best. My gratitude. He's already won it, but later . . . he would have a Hunter indebted to him.

Indignation had me pulling away from the wolf, and Peter noticed it.

_**Doesn't matter,**_ I thought. It did not matter why he chose to help me. I did trust him, where the others would insist I shouldn't and despite whatever payment he expected for when this was over he was risking himself for me. There was no certainty here. Peter might be killed trying to help me, or else I might die and everything he's risked would be for nothing.

So I made up my mind to believe he was helping me, not himself.

Did that make me the fool? No.

I was giving Peter the chance to show that he was more than the big bad sneaky werewolf. Maybe, just maybe, that's what he wanted from this. Wolves longed to belong and though Peter was pack, he wasn't really one of them.

I thought that, maybe, he really wanted to come back to them. He would never ask for it, but he did want to.

Peter slowed the car and pulled onto a narrow dirt lane. We started to bounce in our seats but he wasn't going far. A few hundred feet, out of sight of the highway, and he stopped. Switched off the ignition. We sat for a second, listening to the quiet and our own hearts beating. Eerie quiet, after an hour of speeding down a highway.

"Where are we?"

"A quarter mile from a really big rock," Peter said.


	15. Chapter 15 - A Really Big Rock

_***Of course, it goes without saying that Teen Wolf, the story and all related characters belong to the writers, cast, crew and production team of the show. I claim no ownership or association to the TV series titled Teen Wolf. This was written for fun and solely for the enjoyment of other fans***_

**Chapter 15**

**A REALLY BIG ROCK**

The sun had set and it was starting to rain.

We hadn't brought flashlights with us, and I had no jacket. Peter walked ahead of me, his improved wolf vision cutting through the dark in a way mine couldn't. I followed too closely, better able to sense him than see where I was going.

The rain made the night darker than it should have been and we were far enough from Beacon Hills so that there was no light from the city reflected off the clouds. It really was just short of being pitch black out; looking like the entire world had blinked out of existence leaving Peter and I to drift about in a void. Forever.

_**Not**_ a comforting thought.

Whatever 'big rock' Peter felt the he need to show me was a quarter mile in, or so he said, but it felt as if we'd been walking for much longer than it would take to cross that distance. Again, distrust bubbled and I had to push it away.

What if he'd lied to me?

He hadn't. I had to believe that he hadn't. What would be the point?

My boots crunched on the heavily littered forest floor. A carpet of leaves, needles and pebbles that rolled under my feet. Peter, for his part, moved soundlessly.

"How much further?" I asked ahead, while glancing uneasily all around. Searching so hard for those flashing green lights – eyes – that I would make myself think I saw something. Of course, there was nothing. I was just scaring myself into paranoia.

"Not long now," he said.

"Peter!" My foot caught in a hole and I stumbled, nearly colliding with the wolf.

"We're here."

I took another few steps forward and peeked around his coat. At first, I couldn't make out what we were looking at but then it was as if the heavy clouds and rain parted enough to let a single beam of thin moonlight through. Very dramatic and mysterious.

There it was.

A column of smooth white rock, sticking straight up out of the earth like it was put there on purpose. It might have been the moonlight but the color appeared very dusty. As if the column was made of chalk, rather than stone.

Standing at nearly twelve feet in length with a circumference that appeared as wide around as I was tall, this was really a big rock. A _**huge**_ rock. A creepy rock . . .

"What is it?" I asked Peter.

He shrugged and stepped right up to the rock, his boots making zero noise on the damp leaves.

"This thing comes and goes," he said, and laid a hand on the smooth side of the column. "It wasn't here last week and I know this because I return periodically to check on it."

"Why would you do that?"

Peter. "Because the last time I saw it was the day after I resurrected myself. Or when _**They**_ resurrected me, depending on how you want to see it. Shortly after that, it disappeared."

"This whole thing just vanished?" It didn't seem possible. The rock was solid and so big that it clearly went several meters down into the earth. Buried deeply enough so that it could support its own immense weight without toppling over.

"I hadn't thought to bring you here until today. When I saw how suddenly your health turned I realized that where I survived whatever it was these creatures had done to me . . ."

"Are you saying that you got sick, too?"

"The first time, yes," Peter admitted. "Before the fire. When the creatures first appeared to me. But I have what you do not. Werewolves can heal themselves. You're human. Whatever is happening to you, with that arm –" he winced at the sight of it "– might have happened to me before my body fought off whatever infection is swimming around in your blood."

"And the rock comes into this because . . .?"

"Because once it disappeared, so did the creatures. I didn't see them again. Not for myself. The next time these things appeared they were after you."

I placed both hands on the stone, copying Peter's position, and leaned slightly into it. To see if the rock would move, maybe, or to test that it was actually there. That it was as solid as it appeared to be.

The surface of the rock felt smooth and cool, not at all dampened by rain. To my left hand, it was just an oddly dry stone. My right hand, the one where my flesh was pulled tight from the swelling, caught fire.

Not literally. There were no flames but there was this wave of scalding heat that swept from the palm all the way up the length of my arm to pool somewhere around my shoulder. It could have been molten steel shooting through my veins. Searing white heat. Burning the already tender tissues as if someone had poured acid in my blood.

I didn't scream. Didn't move. For a moment it was like I were glued to the rock. Hands plastered to the chalky white surface. Forced to stand and endure unimaginable pain before whatever magnetic pull that kept me there released its hold and I broke free. Stumbling and sliding, slipping on the slick leaves sticking to the soles of my boots I fell backward and landed with a hard, comical _**thump**_ on my butt.

"Ow," I muttered.

Ow? Even I couldn't believe that was all that came out of me. But the hurt was gone. Just gone and not even the faintest echo of it remained.

I looked up to find Peter standing directly over me. At this angle, his eyes flickered wolfish blue though it was clear his eyes weren't actually glowing. I thought he may have been smirking.

"There's something I need you to see," he said.

Was he kidding?

I climbed back up to my feet, ignoring the hand Peter offered to help simply because I was embarrassed and crossed both arms behind my back. I would look at the rock but there was no way I would risk touching it a second time.

Peter led me around to the other side of the stone and rapped a knuckle against a tiny indent in the otherwise flawless surface. Curious, I edged a little closer.

My heart stopped.

I swear that for just a second, there was a perfect stillness inside my chest. Nothing moved.

There, etched with a frightening precision directly into the rock was a small _**Fleur de Lis**_. A French symbol. Also the Argent family crest.

Argent. Hunter.

Me.


	16. Chapter 16 - Surrounded

_***Of course, it goes without saying that Teen Wolf, the story and all related characters belong to the writers, cast, crew and production team of the show. I claim no ownership or association to the TV series titled Teen Wolf. This was written for fun and solely for the enjoyment of other fans***_

**Chapter 16**

**SURROUNDED**

I checked my phone.

Twice.

Deaton hadn't called.

I was getting nervous, waiting for him. Waiting for those test results. I needed to know what was in my blood and quickly because I could feel the toxin gradually moving deeper inside of me. Those eerie black inflamed veins weren't just in my arm anymore. I could feel them pulsing further and further, branching out from my shoulder to web over my chest and back.

They were like fingers slowly reaching for my heart and it terrified me to imagine what would happen once they got there.

Standing with Peter in the forest, far too near that giant chalk-column rock, it felt as if he and I were alone in this. Or else that we were together in this. Either way, it was very lonely. Being in the rain in the dark in the forest . . .

I returned my phone to my pocket and turned to look at what Peter was doing. We were together but not necessarily side-by-side. I had moved further into the trees, reluctant to be nearer the big rock than absolutely necessary. He, on the other hand, appeared to see no reason not to get closer to the thing. Peter paced soundlessly around the stone, looking very wolfish in the dark with those glinting eyes and long-legged stride.

He loped around the column, occasionally stopping to place a hand on the smooth white rock. Touching it. Feeling it. Not looking for anything in particular, it seemed, but searching for _**something**_. Just something to happen to show that the rock was more than what it appeared to be.

I had not told Peter about the scalding white burn that'd swept through me when I dared to lay my hands on the rock. Was withholding the same thing as lying? Yes. Yes it was. He needed to know this.

Peter stopped again. Placed the palm of his hand on a specific spot on the column and then slowly lay his fingers down. He stood like that for several seconds until, eaten by curiosity, I dared to move closer. He was covering the _**Fleur de Lis**_ etched into the stone.

"What. Are. You. Doing?"

Peter inclined his head, inviting me to come even nearer. No way. Nope. Absolutely not. I wouldn't risk touching that thing again . . .

Nodding as if he understood my reluctance – how could he? – Peter said: "It feels warmer right here."

I edged forward and stopped. "How much warmer?"

"Body warm," he said. "The rest of the stone feels cold. It _**is**_ a cool night."

Nerves prickled. I wanted to see. To feel for myself but fear kept me rooted to the ground several feet away from the pale, ethereal column of stone stuck in the earth like it was launched down from the sky with tremendous force. Briefly, I entertained the idea that aliens may have done this but discarded the thought almost as quickly.

I could believe in werewolves. Aliens seemed a little . . . well I would need proof for that one.

An insidious little voice at the back of my mind pointed out that I'd needed proof of the existence of wolves, too. And they'd turned out to be perfectly real.

Whatever.

"I have a question," I said, and kicked at the rain-wet leaves. Almost fell down because they were slick and I was too tired to trust my balance in the dark.

"So, ask," Peter said. He removed his hand from the stone but kept his gaze fixed on the etching. Creepiness crawled up the back of my neck at the sight of it. My right arm tingled horribly.

"What are we waiting for?"

A moment of silence. Peter said, "I really don't know."

"Does Scott know where we are?"

I got a small smirk for that one. Question answered. So I was in the middle of the woods and no one knew where we were. The last time that happened, I got run down by a pack of bloodthirsty green eyed beasts with claws like glass and a terrifying swiftness. I looked out into the darkness of the trees all around us, wishing desperately that I had thought to bring a knife with me when I slipped away from the pack.

Gazing around, aware of just how vulnerable I was and that the black night was particularly dark, I very suddenly became aware of the faint light radiating outward from the smooth white stone. Staring straight at the rock, I hadn't noticed it because it really was not very bright.

But with Peter standing right next to it, I could see the shadows slanting over his face. Deepening around his eyes and nose and at the hollow of his throat. It's what was causing his eyes to flick and flicker with those bluish lights. Just like with Scott in the stairwell of Derek's loft building. The light accenting the wolf color, even though his eyes weren't actually shining.

And was it my imagination, or was that nearly imperceptible light shining just a little brighter than it had been when we arrived?

I stared harder, trying to remember how clearly I was able to see Peter when he first stepped up to the rock. My mind offered . . . nothing. I couldn't remember. Or else I just hadn't noticed.

The slight tingle in my arm sharpened. It felt like itchy static and I slapped the swollen skin, trying to get the circulation going. Cold shot up and down with every slap, the hits spreading the poison around. Peter glanced over and I can only imagine what he thought I was doing but he said nothing. My hands were shaking as if from hunger. I stared at my finger, trying to gauge what that might mean. What was happening to my body _**now**_?

Low, predatory moans wafted on the breeze.

I froze. Glanced quickly at the wolf now leaning against the stone column. Was reassured to find him holding very still, listening intently.

Without meaning to, I reached for where I usually kept my knife. A slender blade tucked securely against my hip, hidden beneath the line of my jeans. I even wore it to school, when I could get away with it. I did not have that knife with me now but my hand reached for it anyway.

Guess that meant I was feeling a little healthier.

I wanted to fight. Was ready to defend myself.

Peter pulled his lips back, making room in his mouth for lengthening teeth. Exposing the fangs in clear warning to whatever cared to look. Eyes shone like stars. The same glowing blue as the base of a flame. Beautiful. Frightening, but gorgeous nonetheless.

In answer to this threat – this male werewolf who dared to bare teeth and claws – dozens of small smoldering green lights flickered to life from the deep dark of the forest.

We were surrounded.


	17. Chapter 17 - The Mistake

_***Of course, it goes without saying that Teen Wolf, the story and all related characters belong to the writers, cast, crew and production team of the show. I claim no ownership or association to the TV series titled Teen Wolf. This was written for fun and solely for the enjoyment of other fans***_

**A QUICK WORD FROM DAYSTORM:**** LOL Just letting you guys know, this is NOT the last chapter. There's more. It occurred to me while I was editing that this might look like the finish. It's not. :P Chapter 18 will be up soon. By tomorrow, I think. Enjoy.**

**Chapter 17**

**THE MISTAKE**

Racing blindly through a wet forest, dodging trees I couldn't see was scary. At any moment I could slam into the unforgiving wood of a tree trunk. Scarier was trying to run half-blind while monsters hissed and snarled. Unnatural noises and those haunting green lights that flashed and flickered all around.

Peter pelted through the trees only a little ahead of me and I didn't doubt that he was holding himself back. Werewolves were brutal fast and I was far from being at my best. What chance did I have keeping up with a wolf, even one weakened from a cursed resurrection?

Instinct or concern, it didn't matter. He was choosing to stay with me.

I could smell blood wafting from him. A slight metallic tang that stung as I breathed it in. Peter had taken a savage hit before deciding that two dozen smoke monsters were too many for a single wolf to handle. I could have smacked him for that! The sheer stupidity, the arrogance, of believing that he could take them all because . . . well just because he was a werewolf. Did he not remember the beating he'd gotten the last time he fought one?

We were moving so quickly that I could feel the impact of each footfall shooting up my spine. Every step jarred in my skull. I was too tired and frightened to run properly. To pace myself. This was sheer panic. Running and running and running.

Cold, cold poison slithered beneath my skin. Black ink spreading even further through my body. I didn't think I had long, now, until it reached my heart and then . . . and then what? What would happen to me?

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

A call. Not a text but an actual phone call and I very desperately wanted to answer. To tell whoever was on the other end that we needed help. Who else but Pack would call me so late at night? But I could not risk reaching for my phone. The motion would throw off my balance. I was moving too fast and I could not risk slowing.

The green eyes were keeping pace. Like Peter, they could easily have outrun me but they didn't. They were everywhere, just waiting for one of us to stumble. To tire and fall down. It was a very wolfish strategy. Find the weak one. Separate the straggler.

My heart thundered, beating wildly in my chest. My lungs flamed, air sawing painfully in my throat as I fought to pull in the oxygen I needed to fuel my body so that I could keep going. Sweat slicked my back; cool but very warm running down the length of my spine.

Suddenly, I stopped.

Just _**stopped**_. My boots skidded on the slick carpet of leaves. The creatures roared and howled as they hurtled past me, their eyes bright as Christmas lights. Peter spun around, his own eyes shining electric blue and he actually slipped from the speed with which he'd turned to see why I wasn't following anymore. Only instead of falling he deliberately dropped, hands catching his weight. Back arched. Head up. Alert and tracking. A wolf with his belly low, cautious but prepared.

I could see the question in his eyes.

What was I doing?

What could I say?

My mind was working at two speeds. Numb and supersonic. I was stumbling with weariness. Tired in more ways than I had known was even possible. My body battered so that it was all I could do just to keep standing. But all at once, I'd realized something. A tiny little tidbit that my mind had been working through while the rest of me was busy.

I knew why the creatures were not attacking.

Even that first night, where Derek saved me, I thought it odd that the creatures could so easily have run me down but hadn't. And even now they chased Peter, snarling and snapping as if trying to drive him away from me; to drive us apart. Those green eyed creatures were absolutely terrifying but not once did they close on us. They made no effort to finish this even though they could so easily killed us both.

I didn't need a weapon. And I certainly didn't need a protector.

They were _**not**_ going to kill me. They couldn't do it.

Realizing this nearly blew me off my feet. All that terror of these creatures, the certainty that if I faltered they would kill me and then . . . I had been so frightened that I completely missed what was actually happening.

If I died, they could not collect on whatever payment being demanded for their services. Whatever desire of mine they thought they were giving me would be void if I was killed before they could collect. And I was certain that whatever it was they wanted, they hadn't gotten it yet.

One of the massive, wolverine/badger smoky shapes slunk nearer. Those eyes the only things I could clearly see. The scent of burning filled me head. Peter roared. A sound that came from deep, deep in his chest. A voice that shook the air and rattled my bones.

A werewolf's familiar cry. He was calling the pack. We were far, far from the forest outside of town where the others were but maybe they would hear him anyway. There was a chance Peter's voice would carry that far . . .

I bent my knees, careful not to tip over from weakness as I knelt in the mud. Placing myself in an admittedly vulnerable position. Purposely putting myself at the mercy of the creatures.

"Stay back," I warned, cautioning Peter; not the monsters. If he interfered now, he would be hurt. If I was right, the creatures needed me alive but they had no use for _**him**_. "Just stay back."

However, if I was wrong . . . if I was wrong than I was about to die. On my knees with those hulking creatures circling restlessly, there was nothing I could do to save myself.

One of them broke apart from the others, snarling and snapping. Its form too distorted for me to make out but it was huge. The green of its eyes seemed a little clearer than those of the others. More like stained glass. I thought that I could almost see through them, to the back of the creature's skull. The creature padded straight towards me, its frying pan paws thumping heavily.

I wanted to close my eyes. I wanted to look away so that I wouldn't have to watch would happen next but fear kept me immobile.

I was wrong. Just as quickly as I'd decided I knew why the creatures chased us but never closed in for the kill, I made up my mind that I was wrong. It had been arrogant to believe I was important enough to these things to let live.

The creature paused directly in front of me. Teeth glinted, spittle tinted eerily as it was lit from the bright shine of those monstrous green eyes.

My heartbeat faltered, terror freezing even my thoughts. My mind emptied of everything but the vision of those cool, appraising eyes. Wolves howled. Smoke monsters screamed. Unsheathed claws cut into the earth as teeth closed on my throat.


	18. Chapter 18 - The Response

_***Of course, it goes without saying that Teen Wolf, the story and all related characters belong to the writers, cast, crew and production team of the show. I claim no ownership or association to the TV series titled Teen Wolf. This was written for fun and solely for the enjoyment of other fans***_

**Chapter 18**

**THE RESPONSE**

Teeth closed over my throat.

I expected blood. A quick burst of pain and then darkness. I should have died but the moment those sharp, knife-like teeth sank through flesh they dissolved into smoke.

I was okay.

I was right. I was _**right**_!

The creatures would not kill me. They couldn't. I was alive . . . alive!

They howled like mad dogs. Screaming and barking. The sound was deafening. It had to be clear even to people in their cars on the highway. As loud as it was, Peter's roar was even louder. Raw, red fury torn from his throat like it was pulled up from his soul.

"No!" I screamed.

Too late.

Peter launched himself at the creatures. He collided with one and they rolled together, tumbling violently into the wood and dirt at the base of a towering fir. The force with which they hit echoed through the trees like a firecracker. The other creatures descended on Peter in a wave of smoke and green lights.

I was on my feet in an instant, leaping forward to save the werewolf who would die if I couldn't get through that mess of bodies. It wasn't an "us" anymore. At that moment it was me. Just me. My ears hurt from the sound of Peter's pained and very human screams.

Heavy black bodies pressed in all around but I didn't bother fighting the creatures or trying to kill them. I just dug through them, trusting in their unwillingness to kill _**me**_ to protect myself. The creatures snarled and snapped but didn't do much more.

Peter had stopped making noises.

I found him on his stomach, head turned to the side with the creatures pressing down on him so hard that he appeared to be sinking into the mud and leaves. Claws like glass dug into his back, cutting easily through the fabric of his jacket to rip at the flesh beneath. Blood seeped thickly through the coat, pooling dark beneath him and for just a second, I thought he was dead.

The creature on top of Peter swung its massive head around and roared. It was defending its kill and I don't know why I did it, but I took a page from the wolves and pulled my lips back to bare my own teeth. My small human teeth that could not even bite through a steak. No threat at all. My teeth were not a weapon and the creature clearly knew that but it still moved away. Slinking back with a palpable reluctance as if it had been ordered to do so.

I grabbed Peter's upper arm and tugged, not strong enough to lift a full grown man on my own but the wolf was conscious so I didn't have too. Realizing he'd been released, Peter was on his feet in an instant. He moved stiffly, favoring his wounds but fast enough so that I didn't have to drag him with me. We withdrew, standing shoulder-to-shoulder while the creatures advanced. Stalking forward without actually moving to stop us.

My phone started to buzz again. Incoming call. I tensed, expecting the noise of that incessant buzzing to provoke the creatures. Peter must have been thinking the same, because even without touching him I could feel lean muscle tightening. Coiling. Prepared to throw down with the creatures one more time . . . for the last time. He couldn't fight them again.

From far, far away the night came alive with howls. The long, mournful keening of wolves calling to each other. A lot of them. Too many to pick out individual voices.

Scott.

My heart burst. Melted. Relief and a pure, simple joy bubbling up from some place inside of me. I knew they were too distant to be of any help to us at that exact moment, with the creatures circling restlessly only feet away, but just hearing those voices was like being offered a gift from the heavens. We weren't alone. The Pack had heard Peter's call to them and were responding . . . they were coming.

Peter flashed his wolf-eyes, taunting the creatures. They snapped and snarled at him, enraged it seemed before those glowing green eyes blinked out and they burst apart. Black smoke bodies just dissolving into the air.


	19. Chapter 19 - Black Ink and the Illusion

_***Of course, it goes without saying that Teen Wolf, the story and all related characters belong to the writers, cast, crew and production team of the show. I claim no ownership or association to the TV series titled Teen Wolf. This was written for fun and solely for the enjoyment of other fans***_

**Chapter 19**

**BLACK INK AND THE ILLUSION**

I would not have been at all surprised if Peter fainted the moment I set him down. We, or I, had found a sheltered hollow between the thick roots of a tree, where the earth dipped slightly creating a sort of cradle. Weakened from the amount of blood he'd lost, though his body had already healed his wounds, Peter was in no shape to help me search for a safe place to hide us. Instead, he walked passively by my side with one arm wrapped over my shoulders and the majority of his weight on me as he struggled just to place one foot in front of the other.

No more wolves howled but I was confident in the pack's ability to track us. They'd heard Peter's call and were on their way. All _**I**_ needed to do was find somewhere for Peter and I to dig in and wait . . .

Peter did let himself fall heavily between the roots of the tree. He did not pass out. He pulled himself to a more comfortable position and leaned back against the wood and dirt with his eyes closed and sighed. Hurt. Tired.

I ducked down beside him and sat, finally letting myself feel the weakness and omnipresent exhaustion that continued to weigh at my mind. At my body. I hurt everywhere. Muscles cramping now that I had a few seconds to just stop and rest them. That might have even been dehydration. I lay my head on the tree trunk and breathed deeply.

My phone buzzed. _**Again**_. The low, bee-like humming that signaled an incoming call.

I opened my eyes to find Peter watching me. Quietly. A small smile danced in his eyes. Were they glowing? Only slightly. Whatever. I didn't have the strength to try and understand the meaning behind that bluish shine.

I wiggled my phone from my jeans pocket, fighting with it a little as the device seemed caught on the fabric. The pocket too tight for me to pull the phone and my hand out at the same time. I managed to maneuver the phone from my pocket and the buzzing stopped. Call ended.

I tapped the screen and scrolled through to the missed calls. In the pitch dark of the forest at night, the backlit screen seemed absurdly bright. Bright enough to illuminate our whole little area and somehow intensify the beautiful blue shine of Peter's eyes. My own eyes hurt just to look at it.

Deaton.

The name was displayed in black, bold letters. He'd called me from his personal phone, not the clinic landline. Seven missed calls from him, where I'd only been aware of three. He was _**really**_ trying to get a hold of me.

I hit the call button and plastered the phone to my ear. Got only one a half-ring before Deaton picked up. "Allison?"

"Yeah, it's me."

An owl moaned from the darkness. Very near. I glanced at Peter. His eyes were closed again, though I thought he might have just been resting. He was awake.

"Where are you?" Deaton demanded. "It's been hours."

I didn't know. Where were we? Stranded. I couldn't even tell which direction would take us back to the highway. We would be lost until Scott or one of the others tracked us down and led us out of here. Until then . . . I had Deaton on the line.

He was quiet for several seconds, clearly wondering exactly what had been going on during those hours since we left the animal clinic. He must have figured it didn't matter – or at least that it didn't at the moment – because Deaton got down to business.

"I tried to examine the sample you gave me," he said. "But I ran into a little trouble."

What now?

"The sample seemed to be missing. At first I thought that perhaps it had been stolen. But the syringe was right where I had left it, only it was empty."

"What does that mean?" I asked. I don't know how much interest I managed to force into the question. I was curious but exhaustion weighed so heavily that it was all I could do just to follow the direction of this conversation.

"It means the substance I drew from your blood has disappeared. It's gone, Allison."

I sighed and stretched out my legs, accidently knocking against one of Peter's boots. He shifted wordlessly, giving me more room to move.

"Allison, are you listening?"

"I heard you," I muttered.

Deaton sighed loudly. "How are you feeling?"

Simple question with a complicated answer. I was feeling tired. Bruised. Sick to my stomach and a little light in the head. I was also cold and soaked through from the rain. A little of Peter's blood had soaked into my sweater and it was unsettling to think that it was plastered against my skin.

"I'm okay," I said. "It's been a long night."

Another extended silence. Deaton really did enjoy his dramatic pauses.

"Allison?"

"I'm okay," I assured him.

"Allison . . . the dark infection I drew from your veins does not exists."

My eyes popped open and my heart stuttered painfully. Shock. I felt shock before my mind even had the time to process what Deaton had said.

"You're lying." It was all I could think to say. That short, sharp accusation.

No. No, even now I could feel that black-ink-toxin sliding like ice through my veins. It was poison. Pure poison inside of me and every second it was there it spread further and deeper into me. Reaching with greedy, grasping fingers for my heart.

"Allison, listen to me. The infection is not real. It doesn't exist. You did this. The whole time, it was all _**you**_."


	20. Chapter 20 - All Allison Wanted

_***Of course, it goes without saying that Teen Wolf, the story and all related characters belong to the writers, cast, crew and production team of the show. I claim no ownership or association to the TV series titled Teen Wolf. This was written for fun and solely for the enjoyment of other fans***_

**A QUICK WORD FROM DAYSTORM (Me!):**** I'm really sorry for the long delay between chapters 19 and 20. I've just begun another fanfic making it so that I had to shelve this one for a few days while I work on the new one. :) Enjoy!**

**Chapter 20**

**ALL ALLISON WANTED**

I took a rock and sawed at the swollen flesh of my lower arm. The edge was not sharp enough to cut easily through skin but the numbness made it so that trying didn't hurt. Proof that whatever was happening to me was real. Taking the edge of a rock to my arm should have hurt an awful lot. Or did Deaton think that I was able to switch off my body's ability to feel pain with the power of my mind?

I used the light from my phone to see what I was doing. Peter watched quietly from his spot, cradled between the thick roots of our tree. I suppose that should have been upsetting. He could clearly see what I was doing, and I'm sure it must have looked like self-mutilation but he didn't say a word. He made no effort to stop me.

Since I really had no sensation of pain coming from the arm, I took a deep breath and pushed hard. Forcing the semi-sharp point into my skin in a way I would never have attempted otherwise. Because that would have been an immensely painful thing to do to myself. The rock sliced clear through the inflamed flesh and into what had to be muscle and something dark bubbled up from the opening.

It looked like foam. Like a thick, gummy foam that had no business being inside my body. Staring at it, watching it trickle over my arm and drip onto the dirt, I thought of infection but that wasn't right. This was something else.

I didn't know what.

I _**did**_, however, know that it was real.

Deaton was wrong . . .

I glanced at Peter to see what he thought of all this and was met by a lopsided smirk.

"What?"

He lifted one shoulder in a lazy shrug and flicked his claws out with a sharp _**snick**_. "Think this would have gone faster if we'd used these?"

Most likely.

"You interested in getting slime all over your hands?"

Peter chuckled and shifted to a more comfortable position on the ground. Tapped his unsheathed claws against his knee. That was odd, too. When had I gotten so comfortable in the presence of this particular wolf? We had almost worked our way up to a casual bantering.

But I was comfortable with him. And my arm was bleeding dark foamy infection-stuff all over me. I dropped my rock to the ground and looked around. It was too dark to see anything but glowing eyes were fairly easy to see in the pitch black. If there had been any, that is. We appeared to be entirely alone.

The owl that had been crooning mournfully from close by had gone silent. I couldn't tell if that was because it was gone or just ran out of things to say but I was missed it, a little. It was too quiet now, with only the rustling of wind through the canopy. Even the rainclouds had move on, pushed through the sky by a breeze that would be so much fiercer up there. Moonlight shone faintly through the leaves. Not enough to illuminate the earth but it was somehow comforting to look up and see that bright white beacon.

The world felt somehow more real with the moon there. With normal night-noises.

I shivered as I imagined what it would feel like, should a pair of green eyes blink into existence. After the night we'd been having it felt good to have just a little while to stop and rest.

"You never told me what it was you were getting out of this," Peter said.

"No, I didn't."

He knocked his boot against mine. Not hard. Just trying to provoke conversation. "Do you even _**know**_ what you wished for?"

"Do you?" I asked him. "I mean, _**did**_ you? When all this was for you, did you know what it was you'd wanted?"

"Not at first but it wasn't hard to work it out once I realized what was actually going on." He smiled faintly. "But then, I'd been harboring my desire for power for years. Biding my time. I knew it was there. What interests me is whether or not you know what you wanted so badly you conjured a nightmare to get it."

Oh, I knew alright. I may not have consciously wished for it but there was only one thing I'd wanted badly enough. I should have gotten my wish, if these creatures were out exacting payment – whatever payment they were chasing. That part was still uncertain. I didn't know what they were after.

"You don't think I've earned the right to know?" Peter sounded only mildly insulted so I figured he was only mocking me. The wolf had to know that I was going to confess to him. If I could the words, that is.

"I think I know what happened to my dad," I said. I lowered my head, letting a heavy fall of hair create a curtain between us. I didn't want to have to look at Peter while saying what I had to say. And this was definitely something that needed to be said. I didn't know how much longer I could keep that particular secret inside before it consumed me.

Guilt could kill a person as surely as fangs or an arrow.

Peter was quiet for a moment, but then said, "I figured you did."

My head came up. "How?"

"You said so," he said. "The night Derek found you in the forest you had been searching for your father. One of the best werewolf hunters in the world and you thought he would need you to rescue him? Now, unless you expect me to believe you chose a random location to begin your search . . . you knew where he was."

"Not exactly," I said. "I didn't know exactly where to look."

"But you knew the creatures had taken him, didn't you?" The taunt had returned to Peter's voice. "By that reasoning, if your father had been the payment the creatures demanded for their services, all this would be over. They would have gone. So I'm guess that your father was not the price you'd paid. Was he, by chance, your wish? Did you wish your dad gone?"

I could have run him through for that assumption. Luckily for the wolf I did not have a blade on me but it was well within my ability to strike him. Peter was nearly on his back. Claws could be lethal but I was confident I could have gotten at least one good hit in.

But I wasn't suicidal. Just mad.

"That was never what I wanted! My father was taken, yes, but I never wished him gone. I never even implied that I wanted him gone."

"Then what, Allison?" Peter demanded. "Why is it so hard for you to just say what it was? What do you want more than anything? What did you wish so desperately that these creatures were drawn to you?"

Could I say it? Dare I say it?

"I was scared, all right!" It came out in a rush. "I've been scared every second since . . . since I learned werewolves were real. Almost since the day we moved to this godforsaken town! I wished for the fear to end. All I wanted was to be not afraid anymore!"

Peter stared at me. Quietly. Considering.

"Are you sure? They haven't exactly lived up to their end of the bargain, then, huh?"


	21. Chapter 21 - Not Afraid of Werewolves

_***Of course, it goes without saying that Teen Wolf, the story and all related characters belong to the writers, cast, crew and production team of the show. I claim no ownership or association to the TV series titled Teen Wolf. This was written for fun and solely for the enjoyment of other fans***_

**Chapter 21**

**NOT AFRAID OF WEREWOLVES**

The creatures hadn't exactly lived up to their end, had they?

No, they hadn't.

I felt wholly unsatisfied with our bargain. If Peter was right and the creatures were out to give me what I wanted most – to not be afraid anymore – than they had not lived up to their end. Having failed to deliver would explain why no payment had yet been demanded. One might argue that their price had already been taken in the form of my father's unfortunate disappearance but I didn't actually believe that _**he**_ was my sacrifice.

They'd taken him as part of our "deal" but he wasn't the payment.

So the logical assumption would paint my dad as the cause of that fear I had so desperately wanted to be rid of. But there was a flaw to that logic. I had no fear of my father . . .

"I don't think you have to be," Peter said, alerting me to the fact that I had actually been muttering to myself. Too low for most people to make out what I was saying but a wolf's senses were a little sharper than most.

I drove my fingers into the soft, rain-dampened earth on either side of me. The dirt worked its way beneath my nails but that didn't bother me. I did not respond to Peter's opinion, choosing instead to dig narrow grooves in the soil.

Unperturbed, Peter went on; "You wanted to not be afraid. Did you think the creatures would just take the emotion straight out of you? It makes more sense to think that they'd remove the causes of your fear entirely."

"So they stole my dad?" I demanded. "A man I'm _**not**_ scared of?"

But maybe I _**had**_ believed that the emotion would just be drained away. It seemed ridiculous now that I had a moment to think of it, to put the thought into actual words, but it was a testament to how much I could accept and to how far my sense of logic had been turned that I hadn't questioned the possibility. Could an emotion be changed? By what, magic?

"It actually makes sense," Peter said. "You wanted to lose the fear. So they are removing the cause of those fears. When did you first become afraid? Truly afraid, I mean."

"You know when. It started with . . . all of this." I waved a hand, encompassing the word in general. But it wasn't the world that bothered me. It was the dark. The creatures that stalked the darkness where there should have been nothing. Creatures with claws and teeth that I once hadn't believed were real.

I was living my life in reverse. People were supposed to stop believing in monsters as they grew older. I didn't believe in them _**until**_ I grew up. Werewolves.

I glanced at Peter, meeting his gaze squarely. Unafraid to look right at him.

"They took my dad because he's a cause," I said. It wasn't a realization. That, too, I'd known even if I hadn't had the words to admit it before now. "I never knew real fear until I became a Hunter. And the only reason I'm a Hunter is because I'm an Argent."

Peter nodded, looking immensely amused.

"It started with you, too," I pointed out. Peter's smirk faltered.

"Do I terrify you _**now**_?"

I said, "I'm not sure that matters. They're coming for you. Do you think they killed him?"

"Your dad? No."

"Then where is he?"

And why not? What was keeping my dad alive, if the creatures needed him gone from my life forever as part of our bargain?

"Maybe he's inside the huge white rock," Peter said. He said it as a joke but my mind went immediately to the _**Fleurs de Lis**_ etched into the stone and I felt a small shiver of . . . not fear. Foreboding.

With everything else that had gone on, who was to say it wasn't possible that a man could be alive while trapped inside a solid column of rock?

Peter was still talking and it was hard to pull my mind back from where it had gone. I had grasped at the thought that my dad was alive. There was a chance that I could get him back and now we had an idea of where he might be!

Peter. "I said before that I didn't recognize the creatures, making it so that I hadn't immediately realized what was going on because they'd taken a different shape for you than what they looked like when they were mine."

"Right," I responded.

Peter sighed. Heavy and dramatic. "Do you really not see what they've done? Glowing eyes. Huge teeth. Huge claws. The creatures are a reflection of the most common monster in your life."

"They look _**nothing**_ like werewolves," I said.

"No?"

Peter's eyes lit, shining blue as the base of a flame. Fangs lengthened, filling his mouth with teeth capable of ripping through muscle and bone. Dark, iron-hard claws replaced those harmless human fingernails and in my mind, I could see grooves dug into concrete pillars. A combination of a werewolf's brutal strength and the efficiency of his natural arsenal.

Werewolves were terrifying.

There was no way to escape it. Truth, but like most things it wasn't as simple as that. Wolves were powerful and dangerous and were easily one of the most terrifying foes any one person could have.

The wolves were not my enemies. They hadn't been my enemies in too long for me to go back on that. I'd befriended some. Fallen in love with others.

Even now, sitting right next to Peter in his werewolf shape, I was not afraid.

I kicked Peter's boots out of the way and then climbed stiffly to my feet.

"Where are you going?" he demanded, voice not slurring at all despite those huge teeth.

"I'm going to the rock," I said.

"Of course you are."

I added, "You're coming with me, you know."

"Am I?" He snickered. "And why is that?"

Crouching down, I took Peter's hands in my own and lifted them up to show him his own wicked claws. "Because I can't tear it down by myself."


	22. Chapter 22 - Big Rock: Round 2 ! ! !

_***Of course, it goes without saying that Teen Wolf, the story and all related characters belong to the writers, cast, crew and production team of the show. I claim no ownership or association to the TV series titled Teen Wolf. This was written for fun and solely for the enjoyment of other fans***_

**Chapter 22**

**BIG ROCK: ROUND 2!**

Peter's "really big rock" was somewhat less impressive the second time around.

Still a huge white pillar of stone that looked like it might have actually been made of chalk and glowing so faintly that you couldn't be entirely sure your eyes weren't just seeing things. Illusions were always easier to see in the pitch black.

But this time the shock of it, of seeing that rock looming up out of the dark, wasn't as dramatic as when I hadn't any idea what to expect.

We arrived at the stone and Peter walked right up to it, whereas I hung back from the memory of the scalding burn – like boiling water was being poured into my veins. Scared of having to experience it again but the moment I realized that I was starting to feel the fear, I controlled myself. I was even more worried of conjuring the green eyed creatures than of getting burned.

Fear. It all came back to fear and everything that had gone on these past few days seemed designed to unbalance me. To keep me in a constant state of unease so that I stayed afraid all the time.

I stepped a little closer, challenging my own emotion and enjoyed the tenseness crawling up the length of my back because it meant that I was doing it right.

Peter went to work right away. Claws came out with a sharp _**snick**_ and he scored them down over the small symbol etched into the rock. I winced, expecting something to happen. For blood to leak out of the gouges or some such thing.

But there was nothing.

Not even a crack of thunder, which would not have been entirely unexpected.

It took only one claw to completely obliterate my family's French _**Fleur de Lis**_ symbol. That's how small the etching was. And it was at the exact moment that I noted Peter had destroyed it that I also noticed the rock had changed since we were here last.

There were three more etchings in the stone.

Peter saw them, too, and paused to look closer.

One looked like a lowercase 'A' written in cursive. The other two were recognizable from the horoscope. Two identical symbols etched into white rock. _**Gemini**_. The twins.

"Oh, my god . . ."

Peter passed a clawed hand over the lowercase 'A'. I moved to stand right next to him.

"Alpha," he said, simply.

Yes. Alpha.

"They took Scott," I muttered, the words coming out entirely unemotional. It must have sounded like I was beyond caring but that couldn't have been further from the truth. On the inside, I felt myself coming apart. Sobbing. It didn't matter what I looked like. I was grieving. Lamenting the loss of those who meant so much to me.

Even the twins, in their own way.

No one deserved to be buried in rock because I couldn't stand being afraid.

Peter snarled and extended his claws to their full length. I caught his hand before he could strike the stone again and he spun around with startling speed. I stepped back but didn't withdraw. Kept my hand where it was, on his wrist.

"If we destroy the rock while they . . . with them inside it we might kill them."

"You thought of this _**now**_?" Peter demanded.

"Of course not," I said. "But I didn't know how many people had been taken. When it was just my dad . . ." my voice broke, then. It was so, so hard to vocalize what I had been thinking. How could I confess that when I thought it was only my dad inside the rock, it was easier to risk his life? Because it was only one life.

My dad's life.

Peter seemed to get what I was thinking. There were too many of us in there now.

"So what do you want to do?" he asked me. He must have thought there was too much deference in the question because his voice was dripping with sarcasm as he added, "Build a campfire? Maybe sing a few songs to keep ourselves entertained while we wait for the creatures to return?"

I offered a small smile, strangely comforted by his attitude.

"Well, if you really want to," I said. "But I think we need to go back into town. So that I can arm myself."

Peter pulled his arm out of my grasp and sheathed his claws. The glow in his eyes faded.

"It's not that I don't appreciate you're protection," I said. "But I think we've been going about this all wrong. Destroying the rock won't bring anybody back and it won't do hurt the creatures. What we need is to stop them for good."

"And how exactly do you intend to do that?"

I sighed, "When they were yours, the stopped because they'd gotten what they wanted from you. They came, gave you what you wanted most and then made off with their payment all without any conscious agreement from you. They did it because they could."

Realizing Peter's natural impulse to what I just said would be defensiveness, I added, "I don't blame you for it. Hell, you said yourself that you didn't know what was going on until it was almost over. But because of you – thanks to you – _**I**_ know what's happening. And I think I've figured out how to stop it."

"Really?" There was taunting, there, but interest too. I had more than Peter's attention, now. He seemed genuinely intrigued.

"Yeah, really. Your 'wish' was for power. Mine is to be rid of my fears. You get it? _**Fear**_. My weakness. They are using that fear against me. To keep me running scared while they gather their payment." I lay my hand on the white rock. There was no boiling-water pain this time. "Deaton said it. The infection in my arm that I can feel so clearly moving around inside of me is just an illusion. It's not real. The creatures attack whenever I start calming down. The very obvious disappearances. It's designed to keep me distracted. Breaking the rock won't free our friends or my dad. It won't do anything. We have to end this to get them back."

"End this?" Peter echoed. "When the hell did you have the time to come up with this?"

He made it sound like I actually sat down put the pieces together when what had really happened is that I came up with all of it at the same time as I was saying it. It did sound like something I'd put serious thought into but it was not. That didn't mean I was wrong. Hadn't I been right when I challenged the creatures to kill me?

"Yeah, end this," I said, meeting Peter's suddenly enlightened gaze. "They are the embodiment of my fears. I think that to finish this, I need to face my fears on my own terms."


	23. Chapter 23 - Spoiled Milk and a Weapon

_***Of course, it goes without saying that Teen Wolf, the story and all related characters belong to the writers, cast, crew and production team of the show. I claim no ownership or association to the TV series titled Teen Wolf. This was written for fun and solely for the enjoyment of other fans***_

**Chapter 23**

**SPOILED MILK AND A WEAPON**

I might not have known how to get back to the highway – though it was interesting to see how easily I managed to find my way to the rock – but Peter led us unerringly back to the car. Wolves had an inborn sense of direction, I knew, and would instinctively know which direction would only take us deeper into the woods.

The ride back into town was uneventful. Partially, I thought, because I was keeping my emotions carefully controlled. A sudden spurt of nerves might summon the green eyed creatures and we didn't need that. I didn't speak while Peter drove. He kept only one hand on the steering wheel and absently tapped his thumb while staring straight ahead. Distracted. Deep, deep in thought or else alert for signs of pursuit.

It took us far longer to get back to Beacon Hills than it had taken us to find the white rock column in the forest. Just like how it might seem as if it were taking forever to come home after being away for an extended period; the anticipation drawing every second into an infinite amount of time until it seemed like we would never get there.

But of course it wasn't really forever and before long we were winding through the familiar if empty streets of Beacon Hills while normal people slept soundly in their homes. My eyes had grown accustomed to the near-total dark of the woods so that the bright, dusty orange shine of the streetlights were making them ache.

We pulled into the lot in front of my building and Peter cut the engine. The sudden silence was startling. I sat still in my seat, giving my senses a second to accustom themselves to the sudden loss of both noise and forward motion. Peter seemed to be doing the same thing though I thought he may have actually been waiting. For me.

I looked at him, immensely thankful for his presence. I didn't think I would have lasted as long as I had, or done as well, if he hadn't been with me through all of it. I reached for the door and climbed out of the car. Cool, dark wind that smelled of rain and damp asphalt whirled, howling loudly down the empty street. It ripped the car door from my hands, slamming it shut. Green eyes peered at me from the deeper dark around the side of my building; so fleeting that I couldn't be sure it wasn't just a trick of the light.

Peter paced around the car to come stand with me. He looked towards those shining eyes and nodded as if affirming what we both already knew.

I had a measure of control over what those creatures were doing.

I couldn't command them but I had a say in when they appeared to me . . .

A slow rumble started in Peter's throat. I very quickly grabbed his arm and said, "No. Come on."

He didn't argue, instead flanking me as we made our way to the front door of the building and went inside. There was another pair of glowing green eyes watching us from behind a partially opened door just off the main entrance. Low snarls, barely audible with my human ears, came from that direction. I recognized the creature's efforts to illicit a fear-response. They needed me scared because – for now at least – that is where they drew their strength.

There were no creatures in the elevator as we rode it to my floor and the small foyer just outside the front door was empty save for a table and a vase of exotic but artificial flowers. The door wasn't locked so we just strode right in.

"Can you go to the kitchen and get the ceramic tablet I left on the table?" I said to Peter.

He veered off in the direction of the kitchen without even a nod to show he'd heard me. I slipped into my dad's office and froze. The office safe was open with papers, manila envelopes and a dozen butterfly knives strewn over the floor. Pictures on the walls, on the desk and lamps and shelves and bookcases were utterly destroyed. Completely unsalvageable. Someone – or most likely _**something**_ – had ripped through this room with an overabundance of energy.

Panic blossomed and was immediately pushed back down. It was just another trick. The green eyed creatures trying to provoke a reaction from me. And it was far too easy to let them.

A giant gaping hole in the side wall was filled with the contents of our refrigerator. Meat and lettuce and a jug of milk quickly spoiling after only a few hours of being left in the warm room. Not rotten – not yet – but I wouldn't have dared eat any of it.

"Ugh," I commented, just for the sake of saying it out loud and got to work.

The hole in the wall used to be covered by a paneling over a hidden compartment. With a little force, that section of wood could be pushed inward and then slid aside to reveal my father's array of emergency weaponry. Just n case our arsenal was ever confiscated. We had come close to that happening to us before and, well . . . Hunters did not feel particularly secure without ready access to a weapon.

I crawled into the mess of food and started digging through it, hoping to find something a little bigger than the butterfly knives slicing holes in my father's floor rug.

Single-serve cups of yogurt had been split open, oozing their contents onto everything else. Containers of leftover pasta and sauces and gravy turned the mess into a stew. Including a bin of ice cream that was melting all over a stack of defrosted pork chops and chicken. It was disgusting and it stank and just like my father's office, I didn't think we were going to be able to salvage any of it.

A ridiculous thought to be having at that exact moment but someone was going to have to go shopping for more groceries. There was officially nothing left for us to eat.

My fingers brushed a smooth length of something that, even coated with slime, still felt achingly familiar against my skin. I moved my hand back to the object and pulled it out of the mess.

My bow.

I couldn't see any arrows but those were stored in the hidden compartment in my bedroom closet. In my hand I was holding the wicked and complex-looking composite long bow that my father had once refused to let me use. The very bow he had purchased specially for me after I discovered the existence of the werewolves in this town . . . and had shown a proficiency and preference for the archaic ranged weapon.

There was a time where the bow had been my favored weapon, because it meant that I never had to get too close to those I perused. Keeping my distance from those creatures whose greatest strength were teeth and claws had made me feel safer. More in control. Powerful.

My ears were ringing. The silence in the apartment was so absolute that my ears were buzzing.

I turned my head, straining to hear what Peter was doing. Was he even in the kitchen, or had he wandered to another room? But I was unable to pick up any sign of the blue-eyed beta.

I held on tightly to my bow and rose. My legs were trembling. It felt like weakness – I hadn't eaten in quite some time – but it could just as easily have been nerves. No fear of the wolf, I was beyond distrust as far as Peter was concerned, but fear _**for**_ him. Finding my bow in the destruction of my father's study had been entirely unexpected. This was not where I stored the weapon so something had placed it there with the intention of having me find it.

So I was unsettled by the discovery, yes. Had that sudden spurt of emotion been enough to call the creatures? And if yes, than wouldn't harming my werewolf-protector be a great way to provoke even more of the fear they craved to feel from me?

I moved on cat-feet out into the unlit hall and held still. Gauging the energy of my surroundings just as my father taught me. If something was happening, I would know it. Sense it. Feel it. Call it whatever you wanted; violence was never invisible.

The yogurt-slicked-bow in my hands was next to useless without my arrows but I slid quiet as a shadow in the complete opposite direction from where they were stored. I headed towards the kitchen and where Peter should be, acutely aware of the metallic tang stinging at the back of my throat. Blood. Easier to taste on the air than smell it.

I hesitated for just a moment before entering the kitchen. Not afraid this time, despite the mocking set of green eyes leering at me from the hall closet. I was listening. Straining ever sense I possessed. Trying to understand what had gone on while I was distracted and digging through piles of smelly garbage.

Nothing.

Not a sound. No hint of anything moving around. I didn't even get the impression of breathing and _**that**_ worried me. Where had Peter gone?

Holding my bow horizontally in front of myself, prepared to defend or attack, I turned into the kitchen. My boots crunched on broken glass, sounding like I was grinding seashells on the hard tile floor.

I took in the whole room with one quick sweep, my Hunter training coming to me as easily as it always did.

Blood dribbled from the granite counters. Freshly spilled and still a viscous liquid. My ceramic tablet was broke into three parts. Peter was not there . . .


	24. Chapter 24 - Breathe and Carry On

_***Of course, it goes without saying that Teen Wolf, the story and all related characters belong to the writers, cast, crew and production team of the show. I claim no ownership or association to the TV series titled Teen Wolf. This was written for fun and solely for the enjoyment of other fans***_

**Chapter 24**

**BREATHE AND CARRY ON**

I was alone.

Finally all by myself and I hated it. Just yesterday I would have been overjoyed at the opportunity to separate myself from anyone who might get in my way but things were different now. Everything had changed. I moved from room to room, eyes scanning the dark and shadows for any sign of something that should not have been there. A body or . . . or something.

I was searching desperately for a werewolf I would once have been overjoyed to lose. But that was before he'd helped me. Protected me. Followed me so faithfully even when it appeared as if I were the one who was being led. He stayed with me through the forest and the dark and the confusion. Out of all of them, he was the one who was there.

And when I'd run away, finally managing to get free from my friends for fear of having them hurt because of me, Peter hunted me down. He came after me with the intention of helping rather than to bring me back to be safe.

He protected me when I needed it while believing in my ability to protect myself.

And now he was paying for it.

They took him. He was gone and I was alone and I did not dare let myself get afraid. But I was. Deathly afraid for what might have been happening to Peter. And the only interesting thing about this is that so long as I felt fear for someone else the emotion seemed to have no impact on the creatures. Because the level of terror I was experiencing on Peter's behalf should have had the halls of my home overrun with glowing green eyes.

The only evidence I found that Peter had been there was the blood on the counters and his jacket. A tangle of dark cloth on the kitchen floor which I thought was a pile of towels until I noticed what was clearly a sleeve with black buttons on the cuff. It was definitely _**his**_ coat. In the pockets I found his wallet and a few dollars in neatly folded bills. His keys and two individually wrapped mint candies, like the sort you would get at a restaurant.

I left his things alone.

Why would he have removed his coat? Or did he just dematerialize right out of it like in those old space movies?

Once I cleared my home and was sure that I really and truly was by myself, I went to my room and slid open the hidden compartment in the wall of my closet. Pulled out a quiver bristling with arrows. Strapped skinny knives to my thighs, accustomed to the tightness of the straps and knowing just how firmly to tighten it to keep them from coming loose without cutting off circulation. A heavier military dagger was slid into the waistband of my jeans. The weight was comforting. It felt solid. It felt real and that's what I needed right then.

I noticed that the sick, alien-inflammation of my right arm had gotten drastically better since the forest. Since Deaton's phone call, actually. When he told me that it was just an illusion. Like everything else, the "infection" was only designed to frighten me. Sensation was also starting to return to it and that was beneficial for a whole other reason.

I would need both hands to use a bow, and I needed a sense of touch to wield it effectively.

I buckled the quiver to my back, checked one last time to make sure nothing had been overlooked and then headed out.

The wind whirled wildly and there were no stars. Clouds had rolled in while I was upstairs and even though I couldn't really see them – beyond being aware that they were there – I got the impression of thickness. A heavy roll of dark, bloated clouds suspended right over the city.

The wind was wet and cold and prickled little droplets of moisture on the bare skin of my hands and face. It howled like a man bent on murder and I knew that whatever rain we'd experienced earlier was only the forerunner to a real storm.

No sooner had the thought entered my head that I saw a flicker in the distance. A small crackle of lightning. Practically a baby-bolt and it seemed like fair warning. There would be more.

I needed to get back to the white rock column in the woods.

So I stole Peter's car. With the keys I found in his discarded jacket, it was a fairly easy thing to do. Unable to drive with a quiver of arrows strapped to my back, I placed it and my bow in the backseat. If something leapt out at me while I was driving, I would not be able to get them in time to save myself.

My hands shook from tension as I wound my way through the familiar streets of Beacon Hills. It was hard to keep to the speed limit when what I wanted to do was floor it but I really could not risk attracting police attention. If nothing else, the delay would be more than I could stand.

Peter was gone. Everyone was gone. I was alone and I needed to manage this.

Finally – finally! – I made it to the highway and took off like a bullet into the darkness. Away from civilization to a place where the monsters were.

Only I couldn't find it!

I could not find that small dirt side-road Peter had taken before that would lead me back toward the white chalk-rock. I kept driving, periodically slowing down to a near-crawl as I searched the trees on either side of the highway for where I needed to turn – a landmark – but it just wasn't there.

I would glance at the dashboard clock and then back to the road but every time I looked at those glowing red numbers it got more difficult to keep control of myself. It was now so late it was officially _**early**_. What would happen when the sun began to rise? The creatures had everyone. Would the rock vanish, taking my friends with it to a place where I would never see them again?

Would they die?

Finally, I stopped the car. Sat quietly listening to it idling. I didn't do anything as sorry as strike the wheel with my fists or cry in frustration. I just stared out the windshield window, focusing my gaze past the reach of the headlights to the darkness beyond. Far, far away I thought there might have been another car. Tiny red dots cresting a hill maybe a half-mile ahead. It vanished within seconds.

Moonlight shone ghostly white over the trees.

Moon?

There was no moon. No moon therefore no moonlight because of the clouds. Thick, rolling storm clouds that blotted out the sky and everything in it. I switched off Peter's car and then got out. Without the added shine of the headlights, the ethereal glow from the forest seemed painfully obvious. It was the rock. The rock was shining very, very brightly.

It _**had**_ to be the rock.

That glowing white column of enchanted stone encasing my friends.


	25. Chapter 25 - Taking Back the Night

_***Of course, it goes without saying that Teen Wolf, the story and all related characters belong to the writers, cast, crew and production team of the show. I claim no ownership or association to the TV series titled Teen Wolf. This was written for fun and solely for the enjoyment of other fans***_

**A QUICK WORD FROM DAYSTORM:**_**Hi everyone. I am quite aware that it has been a month-and-a-half since my last update and I am sincerely sorry for that. I'm most especially sorry for those of you who have been following this story so closely! It does feel a little like I've let you all down, but my only excuse is actually an explanation. This story is winding up to its conclusion, and I've known exactly how I was going to finish it since I began writing it. But as I was typing up that ending, I realized that it fell flat. I mean, it really did "sound" as if I was just done with the story and wanted to finish it. So I took that month to almost entirely re-invent the ending. There're three chapters to go . . . and Allison isn't finished yet. But I really hope everyone likes the new direction I've chosen to take her. Enjoy, guys. This story is dedicated to all of you, who've been there from the start. And to those who haven't but have enjoyed it nonetheless. Cheers! :)**_

**Chapter 25**

**TAKING BACK THE NIGHT**

The giant white column shone like a star, illuminating the surrounding trees like a lamp would light a room. Unsettling noises were coming from the trees all around but there was nothing to see. A few hours of night remained, if that, and then the sun would rise and I didn't know what would happen to once it did.

Everyone who mattered to me, or who could conceivably contribute to the fears in my life was gone. They were taken. For the first time, I was wholly and truly alone . . . more alone than I could have imagined possible. There was no one left.

That scared me but once it was over, once they were gone, the fear would be taken away too. There would be no werewolves in my world anymore. No Hunter-dad. My heart's desire was not to be rid of the emotion of fear altogether. It was to be rid of _**this**_ fear in particular.

And I was not okay with that.

The familiar weight of a quiver bristling with arrows on my shoulders, the stiffness of the quiver pressing into the length of my spine, was more than a comfort. It reassured me. I was armed and confident in the power of those arrows and in my own skill.

I drew one long, light arrow and put it to the bow. Catching the bowstring with my fingers on the draw, I didn't need a target. I took aim, the razor-edged arrowhead glinting in the ethereal light coming off the stone and fired off into the darkness between two towering trees.

Invisible monsters screamed, their voices howling wildly from all around me and yet seeming to come from nowhere. As if there was really only _**one**_ green-eyed-creature instead of the hundreds crowding so close but just out of sight. Enraged by my audacity.

How _**dare**_ I attack them? I should have been terrified. I was alone but I wasn't scared. The creatures had overplayed their hand by stealing everyone away from me. With those I loved most stolen from me, I was not afraid. I was enraged and that left them with nothing to feed off of. Without my fear, the creatures were weakening.

So I was right. I was correct to believe that facing them – facing my fears – is what was needed to defeat them. I wasn't so sure that beating them would undo anything and knowing that there was no one else for them to take away . . . was there any point to this? That part was not as certain. I really did not know what would happen next.

I drew another arrow. Green lights moved through the trees, slinking low in a way that was distinctly feline. Nerves prickled as I watched them, trying to judge where they were going. To see if there was some sort of pattern in their movements. I didn't expect to find anything but to my surprise, there was one. A very distinctive cross-current. One would pass to the left and then almost immediately after, another would cut across going to the right.

I knocked my arrow and drew on the bowstring. Focused my attention on the spot where I knew a creature was about to appear. My pulse beat evenly, helping to keep my hands steady. I was too focused on what was happening to feel the tension of the moment. And that helped to keep me calm.

The creatures blurred a little. Sharp little snarls and snips were coming from the trees behind me. Scrabbling sounds and then the harsher grating noise of claws on rock.

I spun without even needing to think and spotted the shadowy bulk of a creatures perched on top of the white stone column where my friends were trapped. The razor-edged titanium tip of my arrow glinted, reflecting the haunting green glow from those eyes.

Glass claws scrapped, scoring deep grooves into the rock. Fear prickled as I imagined that those inside the rock might have been experiencing some sort of pain. Could they feel anything from within? Were they awake? Trapped in some silent torment?

I released the arrow.

The creature was so near that the arrow struck with all the force of its release, having had no time to lose momentum with distance. It struck the creature right between its brightly-lit green eyes. Right through the centre of its forehead.

Smoke erupted and the creature blew apart in a gush of oily black vapors. A miasma of sickening smell and sensation. I felt that arrow pierce my own skull, cracking through bone and into the soft tissues within. My brain, incased in protective fluids that drained out as the natural pressure was released from the impact of my own deadly arrow.

I screamed.

I couldn't help myself. The pain was beyond anything I could have imagined. What should have killed me – a shot between the eyes – did not kill but my arrow was there. I could feel it. The hard, cold length of a metal rod straight through my head. I was on my knees in the slick leaves and mud at the foot of the stone column, having no recollection of dropping down. How did I . . . I fell?

My mind clouded with pain, the worst of it fading but not nearly quickly enough. My vision tunneled, narrowing to a single dark point and only gradually returning to normal. I looked around, sweating and gasping for breath. My fingers were caked with mud from where I dug them into the ground in a futile attempt to hold on to something. An outward representation of my inner desperation. To please, please survive. To live through the trauma of having an invisible arrow driven through my skull.

The creatures were closing in on me. As my vision cleared a little more, I could see them. Not their bodies, those were too dark to see through the haze. It was their eyes. Green as a freshly mowed lawn but menacing. They circled restlessly. Predatorily. Hungry for whatever I had to offer and ready to take everything they were able to draw out of me. My panic. My terror. That sensation of helplessness that I was trying so hard to pretend was not there.

They knew it was. They were better able to feel it than even I could . . . and the emotion was mine to start with!

I crawled unsteadily to my feet, vaguely aware that the creatures hissed slightly back. Withdrawing by only a few inches but enough to show that they were not pleased by my defiance. I should not have had the will to stand, much less face them again. I dragged my bow out of the mud, holding the weapon to my chest as if it were a special shield able to keep the creatures away.

Would this happen to me each time I struck one of the creatures? Was this the price I would have to pay to destroy them?

Did I have the strength to die-but-live over and over again?

This was far more complicated than simply facing my fears. I placed another arrow to the bowstring and hesitated. I didn't even lift it. Just stood and waited, watching as the creatures moved daringly close again. Testing my strength. My resolve.

I understood. On some baser level – a purely instinctive one – I really _**did**_ get it.

It wasn't my fears I was facing now. Those had mostly been mastered, if not necessarily conquered. Just by being here, I had proven that I would not allow fear to dictate my actions. But proving myself was not the purpose of this and that caused the game to change.

I was here for my friends and for my dad. I wanted them back and that had become my greatest desire. My wish. And payment would have to be offered for the rights to their return. So I would hurt. I would suffer for every life I wanted back.

Eight lives. My dad; Scott; Derek; Stiles; Isaac; Ethan and Aiden . . . and Peter. Yes, Peter too. He was the surprising ally. A grudging but appreciated friend. The wolf that had come to mean so much to me.

One green eyed creature dead. One excruciating bolt through my own head in payment . . . seven to go. My heart hurt in anticipation. My stomach cramped with denial. Not again. I couldn't do that again.

But I had to.

And I would. I wasn't ready for more, but I would do it. For those I loved.


	26. Chapter 26 - To Die and Survive It

_***Of course, it goes without saying that Teen Wolf, the story and all related characters belong to the writers, cast, crew and production team of the show. I claim no ownership or association to the TV series titled Teen Wolf. This was written for fun and solely for the enjoyment of other fans***_

**Chapter 26**

**TO DIE AND SURVIVE IT**

My hands were trembling. Palms sweating so badly that I feared dropping my arrow. Sharp bursts of anticipation needled through my chest but those I could ignore, so long as I remembered to breathe. It was important that I keep breathing . . .

The creatures howled and for the first time, I noticed that their numbers had dwindled. Where it once seemed as if hundreds of pairs of eyes prowled through the inky darkness, I was now able to count only seven. Seven pairs of eyes for the seven lives I had to buy back from the mysterious rock.

One pair of green eyes darted forward. As insubstantial as smoke but quick as a darting sparrow. My bow and prepared arrow came up in one smooth, practiced motion. The tip wickedly sharp. Reluctance and the memory of what it felt like to be shot had me tightening my hold on the feathered tail of that arrow rather than release the bolt as I would have done otherwise.

Which of my friends' lives would I win with the death of that particular monster? Which friend did I win by killing the first?

Sudden motion out of the corner of my eye had my attention turning in that direction. Was that . . . no. Yes, it was! A body was sliding out of the rock. A solid mass was being forcibly and rather violently expelled from the smooth white stone like a piece of meat regurgitated from the belly of a beast.

I moved, flinching back and out of the way as the dark, comatose figure was freed and collapsed in a crumpled heap at the foot on the stone column. I stared, unable to look away but equally unsure of who it was.

The creatures chose that moment – that distraction – to attack. One shadowed body lunged straight at me. Startled, I lifted my bow again (I let it drop, arrow pointed down when the body started to immerge from the rock) and fired before I was ready. The arrow whistled as it was released and imbedded itself in the mud and rain-slicked leaves.

The creature knocked me down, pinning me to the earth. The heavy, acrid odor of smoke choked me, filling my airways and denying my body access to needed oxygen. I kicked out with a heavy, booted foot. Fighting to free myself from the creature's insubstantial weight. It was so light that I should have been able to just shove it aside; to fling it out into the trees but the creature could have weighed as much as an elephant for all the good struggling did.

Teeth clicked only inches from the end of my nose.

"Get off!" I shouted. My hands sank into the place where the creature's chest should be and it was like pushing against half-solid smoke. A particular sensation. Also an unsettling one.

I was unsettled. With a monster pinning me to the earth, claws digging into my shoulders and teeth in my face . . . I was unsettled. I tried to use that to my advantage, denying the creature any fear to feed from. I would not let it draw the strength it needed to harm me from my own emotion.

I twisted my head around, exposing my throat. Cool night air and thick smoke slid over the sensitive skin of my throat. The carotid artery pulsing so heavily that I could feel each beat of my heart thrumming just beneath the skin.

The creature fell for what I offered and moved for my throat. My hand closed over the hard plastic hilt of the military knife secured to my belt. I drew the knife in one quick, smooth jerk and plunged all eight inches straight into the body of the creature. Behind it's front leg, essentially right beneath its arm to where there would be a gap between the ribs in a human. A straight line to the heart.

_**Whoomph!**_

Smoke burst apart. Pain sawed violently through my entire body and I choked on the blood filling my mouth. My heart burst from my knife cutting deep, deep into muscle. A precious, vital organ sliced open. I could feel my knife inside of me so, so clearly. The sensation so sharp that I might have just stabbed myself instead of the green eyed creature.

Through the pain clawing in my chest, I saw another dark body being released from the stone column. Glass claws pricked the back of my neck, sliding down to between my shoulder blades. Another creature ruthlessly attacking while I was helpless and distracted. Hurting and crying and unwilling to fight back. How could I do it again? How did anyone expect me to just kill another creature knowing what I would experience when I did? I couldn't . . . not again.

I wanted to cry. I wanted to curl into a ball and pull my knees up to my chin and just weep.

It wasn't fair that I had to do this. It wasn't right that I was alone and in agony and that there were still five more creatures to destroy before it was over. My only consolation is that it _**would**_ end . . . by only after five more excruciating deaths.

I caused this. The lives of my friends and family were threatened because of me, and to get them back I would have to pay for it in blood. And not a drop of mine was actually being spilled.

The creature at my back huffed loudly and then snarled. A deep, guttural sound that reminded me of a feral badger. Very different from the wolfish noises I was more familiar with. These were sounds meant to unbalance me.

My hand was sweating on the knife I held in a fist. I wasn't even holding it, really. I was grasping it as if my fingers had locked around the hard plastic hilt. I could not have let go of it.

I did not give myself time to brace myself for what would happen next. Keeping my mind deliberately blank, I swung my arm around – jarring my shoulder almost out of its socket – and imbedded the sharp knife in the throat of the creature at my back.

It howled. I screamed.

It flew apart, black smoke billowing out. Dissipating into nothingness.

My mind trembled under the immense weight of that third death. I didn't see any other body immerge from the rock. I couldn't see anything over the red haze moving over my vision. My lungs seized, making it so that I couldn't breathe at all.

But I needed to see! If I was going to do this – if I _**had**_ to endure this – then I had to see my friends returning. I needed to know it was worth it.

Scarcely able to move to breathe, I still managed to roll over and face the huge rock. Stubbornness was the only thing that made it so that I could. Every nerve and tendon in my body ached. Even the slightest twitch was enough to make that fading pain flare up again.

I didn't see the body drop out of the rock but there were now three dark shapes crumpled on the ground. One on top of the other though not exactly stacked. They lay where they'd fallen.

Three out of eight. Five left . . .

My breaths trembled on every cautious inhale. I couldn't do this. My will and resolve wavered.

I looked at the bodies of my friends again, not even sure any of them were alive. And then, though the dark of a forest at night and the deafening howls of enraged creatures I saw the shine of glowing blue eyes staring back at me.

Familiar blue.

Peter.


	27. Chapter 27 - Blue Eyes

_***Of course, it goes without saying that Teen Wolf, the story and all related characters belong to the writers, cast, crew and production team of the show. I claim no ownership or association to the TV series titled Teen Wolf. This was written for fun and solely for the enjoyment of other fans***_

**QUICK WORD FROM DAYSTORM:**** One chapter to go, guys! :D Has this been a wild ride, or what! Next chapter – the LAST chapter – to be posted tomorrow.**

**Chapter 27**

**BLUE EYES**

I locked my gaze on that wonderfully clear blue glow. Unwilling to look away and risk losing my frail little glimmer of hope. It was too cruel to think that I may have only been imagining it. Peter, alive and awake and staring back at me with an expression of firm resolve.

He blinked slowly but kept his gaze fixed with mine; seeming to almost be holding onto me with the same need to assure himself that this was real. He was back. Freed from the rock and I had to wonder if he knew what it had cost me.

I wondered if I would ever tell him . . . probably not.

This was mine. My payment. My penance.

The creatures were roaring, filling my head with noise. With weight. Peter moved, carefully positioning his hands on the ground beneath him. I saw the coil of lean muscle move beneath his shirt as he prepared to push off and –

I understood. And I had to be ready. I had to be ready to get up again and keep fighting. Peter would buy me the distraction I needed. It was up to me to find the strength it took to . . . to kill another creature. My friends were worth it but I so desperately didn't want to have to go through that again.

Another noise cut through the guttural snarling and howls from the creatures. A low, threatening growl. Really little more than a rumble but I felt it travelling up through the ground. Peter leapt! Wolf certain and brutally fast, he launched himself at the closest creature as the beast was passing by.

I was on my feet only seconds behind Peter, quick too but weakened and with reflexes that were nowhere near as refined as his own. He was just faster.

The creatures lost their minds, then. They had been so focused on me that the addition of a new threat drove them into a frenzy of snapping teeth and glass-claws. Peter was on the first creature, pinning it messily to a tree. He was physically not as strong as the creature but definitely a lot madder. He wouldn't give it any space to escape or to turn on him.

I struck at another with my knife. The blade glinted wickedly in the pale shine coming from the stone column and I knew that the edges were still sharp. My knife could have cut wood. But reluctance and true terror at having to feel that blade slicing into my own flesh had me flinching back. I tried not to. I tried to keep my aim sure and to put as much strength as I could into the hit but . . . I might have missed on purpose. My knife whistled as it cut only air and the creature ducked beneath my arm.

Glowing eyes and glistening teeth. It leapt up and I felt two thick paws press into my chest, knocking me back. I fell, unbalanced and unwilling to struggle too hard and risk killing the creature. My head felt suddenly light as I thought of what would happen if I did. My stomach cramped.

And then fire ripped through my abdomen. Molten heat as I was mortally wounded. Claws ripped, mercilessly tearing at my body. I looked down, astounded at how futile all this had been. And how quickly it would be ended. My fight . . . my friends . . . I failed them.

But there was nothing. I stared at my stomach, at my sides and the black turtleneck shirt now caked with mud and saw no blood. No cuts. I was bruised from all the times I was knocked down but otherwise unharmed.

I turned my head and saw Peter surrounded by a cloud of heavy black smoke, quickly being snatched away by the wind. He roared a challenge at the remaining creatures, daring them to approach and I immediately knew what I had just experienced.

Peter killed the one he'd been fighting. It was _**his**_ claws I felt digging into my stomach. Tearing so brutally at my innards. Tears scalded my eyes as I turned my knife on the creature on top of me, pinning me to the ground with a weight I couldn't figure. How does smoke weigh as much as this? I could scarcely breathe as the creature leaned forward, pressing down on my chest. It felt as if it were bending the bones of my ribs.

I held the knife high, unable to see the blade through the black bulk of the creature's body but aware of the strength I was able to put behind it, even from such an awkward position. I drew a quick breath, braced myself for what I knew I would feel and then _**struck**_!

My knife descended, cutting straight into the creature's back and I immediately felt the scalding burn of that cold, cold blade slicing through the muscle between my shoulders. It nicked spine and sank deep, deep inside. My heart thudded, pounding desperately against what I was doing to myself and the creature dissolved into smoke all around me.

Another body was slowly expelled from the shining white stone towering over the battle raging around it. And another color was shining in the darkness. Not the green of the monsters, or Peter's fierce, beautiful blue but a blazing, glorious red rising up from the pile of bodies.

Scott.

The sight of him, alive and angry, was nearly all it took to make my heart stop altogether. My relief at the sight of him was too much. Too much to stand after everything that had been going on these past few days. I had felt so alone, so scared and lost and small.

But there he was.

Scott with his eyes glowing radiantly red. Claws fully extended and lips pulled menacingly back from his teeth, exposing them. He glanced at me, the wolf riding him hard but still fully conscious of himself. Awake and aware and in perfect control of his lethally violent werewolf side.

I saw him pause. Hesitate. I can only imagine what he was thinking. I stared back at him with such longing and the pain I endured probably showing in my own eyes. Were my cheeks streaked with tears? I couldn't tell, though my face felt hot.

He moved for me, taking an instinctive step forward but then dropped down into a defensive crouch as something leapt clear over my body. The creature sailed right over me, aiming for Scott who did not look at all inclined to dodge the attack. He met the creature head-on and I saw the flash of claws rake the creature's flanks.

A slow heat crawled through my body, rolling sickeningly just beneath my skin but the creature was not mortally wounded. I didn't really feel Scott's claws. Not like I could have felt them, if he'd driven them deeper.

The creature was flung against the stone column. It climbed to its paws and roared. Scott roared back, not at all intimidated by its bravado and flung himself forward. Teeth bared and claws . . . oh, god! Claws driving straight towards the green eyed creature's throat.

"Scott, no!" I shouted.

Startled, he faltered. He instinctively turned his head to look at me and . . . and the creature lashed with both paws. A vicious, brutal hit with enough force to cause Scott's head to cave in on itself . . .

I lifted my hand, the heavy military dagger resting so lightly in my gasp and flung the knife with all the strength and momentum that my human body was capable of.

The knife whistled as it flew straight as an arrow exactly for where I'd aimed it.

The knife imbedded itself in the centre of the creature's forehead. Pain, slow and creeping eerily through the inside of my skull trickled from the front to the back and then quickly down the whole length of my spine felt very, very cold. Not at all like the fiery burn of the other deaths.

Only then did I see that I – myself – had just killed the _**last**_ of the creatures. There were none left.

Blue eyes approached. Beautifully colored but formless in the thickening dark. Scott was invisible. His eyes, which should have been red, had returned to their normal human brown. Without their bright shine, I couldn't see him.

I sank to me knees. My hands flat against the cool earth. Blood trickled from my ears. I could feel it as it slid over my jaw, following the line to drip off my chin. The taste was in my mouth. I was hurt. Hurt very, very badly . . . and I think it was supposed to be in pain but all I felt was this quiet, numbing cold.

Just cold.


	28. Epilogue - Was It Worth It?

_***Of course, it goes without saying that Teen Wolf, the story and all related characters belong to the writers, cast, crew and production team of the show. I claim no ownership or association to the TV series titled Teen Wolf. This was written for fun and solely for the enjoyment of other fans***_

_"You know normal wolves never abandon an injured member of the pack.  
__They care for it. They bring it food from a kill and then regurgitate it into the mouth  
of the injured wolf. They even give it physical and emotional comfort by intensely grooming it.  
In a way, they can do more than just ease pain. They can be instrumental in healing their own . . ."  
_**– Peter; Alpha Pact; S03E11**

**Epilogue**

**WAS IT WORTH IT?**

I was alive.

My father and my friends were back. They were returned to me, though not without a price. I was sure that killing the last of the creatures had been the end for me. I really thought, in that last moment of awareness with the darkness closing in on all sides, that the final cost to save my friends would be my own life.

I was afraid. I didn't want to die but I couldn't find the strength to fight it. I sank deeper, letting the dark take me and trying not to feel bitter that I was . . . I was ending. It was over.

Only I wasn't.

Three days after that final night, I woke in my own room. My familiar, safe bedroom with a saline IV stuck in my arm and my father asleep in a chair by the bed. No one knew if I would ever wake up and they had all been so afraid for me. And I loved them all the more for that. They cared for me. All of them. The pack were as much a family to me as my own father was. As my mother had been.

It felt good. Very, very good to know that I was one of them. And that bond I shared with the werewolves is why I chose to trust a wolf with a favor, instead of my father. My dad would not have understood. He might have tried but this was not his. It wasn't for him. This was mine and there was only one other who belonged there with me.

Peter picked me up at dawn. He said nothing, just pulled up in front of my building and waited for me to climb in. What was there for us to say to each other? Without even needing to be told where we were going, he eased onto the street and pointed the car in the direction of the forest where I was supposed to have died.

I looked at him often as we sped down the stretch of highway outside of Beacon Hills. I searched my memory for the moment where we became partners. Friends. But I couldn't find it. I did not know exactly when the switch from distrust to my most-trusted happened. And it made me think that maybe, just maybe, that connection had been there for longer than either of us would admit to.

At some point between the vengeful murder of my aunt Kate, Peter's death and quick resurrection and my own gradual, grudging acceptance that he had rejoined the pack . . . sometime during that period is when we'd come to be more than friendly enemies. Our feud was over long before Peter chose to side with me and helped to defeat the green eyed monsters I inadvertently summoned.

This was weird.

I sat back in the seat and folded my hands in my lap. Stared forward until my eyes blurred from the strain. The sun rose higher, sparkling off the bleached asphalt. Late spring was starting to feel like early summer. The sunshine was hot, beaming through the car windows so that I wanted to remove my jacket but I knew that once we were in the shade beneath the trees it would be too cold to go without.

Besides, the jacket I wore helped to hide the knife I brought with me. Sheathed securely at my hip, with only the hilt showing over the line of my jeans, it was there if I needed it though I didn't expect that I would. We were going back to the place where the white stone column had stood.

The day I revived, the entire pack had gathered to welcome me back. Afraid that I was dead, or that I would never wake, it took some time to convince them that all I needed was peace and a little while to come to terms with all that had gone on. And to forgive myself for my part in what the pack had suffered. But that same day, once the others had been sent away, Peter snuck back in to tell me that he'd returned to the location of the stone column to check on it and that the huge rock was gone. Vanished just like it had disappeared when it'd been finished with _**him**_ . . .

No matter. I needed to be sure. I trusted Peter but some part of me needed to see it with my own eyes. We were going back, and I wanted to find nothing but trees out there. And Peter would take me, because of all of them I felt that he was the only one who would understand exactly why I had to do it. He was the only one who would not question this.

We pulled onto the narrow dirt path that cut from the wide, paved highway straight into the trees. A road that was too easy to miss even in the bright morning light. My stomach lurched as he stopped the car and cut the engine. Just like the first time he brought me here, the sudden silence was deafening. My ears started ringing and I shook my head to stop it.

"Are you ready?" Peter asked me.

"Are you sure you know the way?" I countered. Without the rock, there would be no landmarks to show where it'd stood.

Peter offered a small smirk and got out of the car. Funny, how that familiar arrogance warmed me. It reassured me. No one had wanted to say what they'd experienced while trapped within the stone, but it didn't seem to have changed them. And I was happy for that.

I followed the wolf into the trees, leaving any semblance of a path back with the car. We hiked through the wilderness. Peter's steps soundless on the forest floor. Mine were light but not as predatorily quiet. This, too, was familiar. During our whole brutal misadventure, I'd become accustomed to trusting Peter to lead me safely through. It was easy to let myself do so again.

"Here," he said, his voice softer than I would have expected. He was standing only a few steps ahead of me, his hands buried in the deep pockets of his dark coat. Head held high as he gazed casually around at a patch of dead grass growing in a near perfect circle.

I moved to stand beside him and did the same. I looked around at the trunks of the surrounding trees and immediately saw how the bark on those nearest to where the stone had stood were blackened and peeling horribly, as if they'd been burned by fire. Fire or . . . or some other source of intense heat.

"Satisfied?" Peter asked me.

Without responding, I knelt down and pressed my hands into the circle of dead grass and brittle leaves. The ground was cold. I shivered.

I said, "Do you think it'll come back?"

"Do you really think it won't?" he countered.

I was sure it would. I had only wanted Peter to lie to me and say _**'no'**_. Count on him to deny me the lies I would have welcomed.

He must have read my mind, because Peter sighed heavily and sank down beside me. "It might not be back," he allowed. "It's a big world. Lots of desperate desires from stupid people for it to feed from. The odds, really, that it would return after you so thoroughly embarrassed the thing . . ."

I laughed at that. Genuinely amused at the thought that I had somehow embarrassed an evil rock.

My head ached. A sharp stab of pain right between my eyes. The same pain I'd been feeling on-and-off since waking up to discover I was still alive. I may not have died that night but I wouldn't be permitted to forget what I had done, either. The rock was gone, chased away or just bored with me. Whatever the reason, it wasn't here anymore.

For that, I would be grateful. I would let myself believe we'd won.

And I truly, honestly pitied the next fool to find that his most desperate heart's desire has been fulfilled. For me, at least, the price of getting what I wanted had really not been worth it . . .

**The End**

**A Final Word from DayStorm:** Hey all! Thank you so much for your continued support (and wonderful, sometimes genuinely funny responses in your reviews! You guys really make me laugh!) For anyone interested in what comes next, I've begun a The Originals fanfic titled _A Red Sun Rises_. This new fic will be more "bookish" than usual fics. By that I mean there will be a real, driving plot and though there is a romance in there the romantic part will not be the focus of the story. Gotta say, writing _Green Eyes_ has been a wild ride made so much more fun by knowing that it was being read by so many great people who seemed genuinely interested and moved by Allison's plight. I hope to see you all over on _A Red Sun Rises_ but if I don't, that's fine. Good things have to end, or else they lose their value. I really did enjoy this and I feel that many of you did too.

All my best,

DayStorm


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